Islanders ride a four-goal second period to win over Hurricanes

The Islanders knew they needed a response. Less than 48 hours earlier, they had looked as listless and disorganized as possible. And even in previous games in which the team graded itself as playing well, the wins were stingy in coming.

The remedy, coach Patrick Roy decided, was a need to score more goals and inject some fun back into hockey. Beating the team that had eliminated the Islanders in the first round in two straight seasons would be a bonus.

The Islanders checked the boxes they needed to in Saturday night’s 4-3 win over the Hurricanes at UBS Arena, sparked by a four-goal second period that was among their best 20 minutes of the season. Even Bo Horvat, playing through hard luck in a 13-game drought without a goal, finally scored.

“We had to bounce back,” defenseman Ryan Pulock said of Thursday night’s listless 5-2 loss to the visiting Kraken. “It was probably our worst game of the year. That’s a good team. That’s a good win for us.”

The Islanders (10-11-7), who won for only the third time in 11 games (3-5-3), will face the Senators on Sunday night in Ottawa.

“We’ve got to play the same way,” Pulock said. “This is a win you can build off. The other night, it just felt like we were a little off. Tonight, we found ourselves back to where we need to be. Guys were reading plays, reacting, ending those plays. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time in our zone.”

Defenseman Alexander Romanov blocked a game-high eight shots, rookie defenseman Isaiah George blocked six and Pulock blocked five as the Islanders had 32 blocked shots as a team.

A brilliant Ilya Sorokin made 28 saves, 18 of them in the third period. That included getting his left pad on Martin Necas’ redirection at the far post off Andrei Svechnikov’s feed at 4:30 of the third period and using his blocker to rob Necas on a one-timer at 13:16 with the teams skating four-on-four.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi did cut it to 4-3 with 48.8 seconds left with the Hurricanes (17-9-1) skating six-on-five.

“We’re trying to be consistent with that effort,” said Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who had a goal and two assists after Roy inserted Maxim Tsyplakov onto the top line with Pageau and Horvat. “You out-compete a team like Carolina, you’re going to win a lot of games.”

Roy focused Friday’s practice on ways to increase scoring. It came to fruition in the second period, even after Svechnikov’s second power-play goal on a questionable high stick against Lee — it actually was the captain’s elbow that struck Necas — gave the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead at 9:23.

“No kidding,” Lee said with a laugh when asked about putting some fun back into the Islanders’ game. “We’ve been grinding this out. But I thought we had a great day of work [Friday] and it set us up for a tough opponent.

“We’re not getting the results and that weighs on you. It was a big opponent. I thought it was a character win.”

Pageau tied it at 1-1 as he got to the crease for defenseman Noah Dobson’s feed at 6:05 of the second period. Oliver Wahlstrom, coming upon a loose puck after a strong Islanders’ forecheck, tied it at 2-2 at 10:06 with a wrist shot from the left circle. It was the type of confident shot from Wahlstrom the team needs to see consistently.

Tsyplakov, following his own shot, put the Islanders ahead 3-2 at 16:16 and Horvat connected on a one-timer off Pageau’s feed at 18:55.

“I’d be more worried if I wasn’t getting chances,” said Horvat, who had four shots. “So to finally see it go in and get the win behind it, it felt great.”

The Islanders outshot the Hurricanes 12-2 in the second period.

The Hurricanes’ Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 21 shots.

Notes & quotes: The Islanders’ four goals in the second period were a season high . . . Semyon Varlamov (lower body/day-to-day) remained unavailable, so Marcus Hogberg again backed up Sorokin. Roy said he plans to play Sorokin against the Senators, which would be the first time this season Sorokin has started both ends of a back-to-back . . . Defenseman Grant Hutton and forward Pierre Engvall were the healthy scratches.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.