Islanders fight off Senators for second straight victory

OTTAWA, Ontario — It’s a two-game winning streak.

That’s modest, of course. But as the Islanders try to build consistency, they have to start somewhere, and Thursday night’s 4-2 decision over the Senators at Canadian Tire Centre gave them their first back-to-back wins of the season and their third regulation victory.

“You don’t want to think about it too much,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. “You want to keep improving your game. I think the way we were playing, we probably deserved to win two in a row at some point.”

“I think we’re just starting to get rewarded for the stuff we’ve been doing,” said Bo Horvat, who capped a three-point performance with an empty-net goal with 10 seconds left to clinch it. “I think we’ve been doing a lot of good stuff throughout the course of the year.”

With three regular defensemen and top-liners Mathew Barzal and Anthony Duclair out with injuries, the Islanders couldn’t do it easily. The Senators nearly rallied after falling behind by three goals in the third period.

But a sharp Semyon Varlamov, making his first start in four games, stopped 28 shots for the Islanders (6-6-2), including 15 in the second period, as the Senators (6-7-0) lost for only the second time in seven home matches.

“We spent a lot of time in our zone in the third period instead of keep putting pressure on them,” Varlamov said. “Ottawa is a fast team. You can’t sit back and rely on your defensive zone all the time. You’ve got to push back and you’ve got to play fast against them.”

The Islanders had rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period for a 4-3 shootout win over the Penguins on Tuesday night at UBS Arena.

It may or may not be a coincidence that the Islanders have won two straight with 20-year-old rookie defenseman Isaiah George in the lineup. George, a fourth-round pick in 2022 playing in his sixth professional game, built off his strong NHL debut with 23:59 of ice time and four of the Islanders’ 22 blocked shots after being elevated to the top pair with Noah Dobson.

“He skates well and he moves [the puck] really well on the ice,” coach Patrick Roy said. “I thought for a guy that it’s only his second game, he was getting more and more confident out there.”

Oliver Wahlstrom, the 11th overall pick in 2018, received 8:58 of ice time but made the most of it with a backhander from the slot to make it 3-0 at 2:41 of the third period after Matt Martin was denied at the crease. It marked the first goal from a fourth-liner this season.

“We were all telling each other and hugging each other that we did it,” Wahlstrom said. “A couple of bounces didn’t go our way the first couple of games. You’ve just got to stick with it.

“The last few games, we feel we’re getting more shots and creating a little more,” Wahlstrom added of the Islanders as a whole.

Defenseman Nick Jensen cut the Islanders’ lead to 3-1 by getting open in the right circle and beating Varlamov to his glove side at 7:43. Drake Batherson’s power-play goal at the crease with Max Tsyplakov in the box for boarding Claude Giroux made it 3-2 at 14:27.

Varlamov shrugged off a mostly inactive first period — the Senators had only two shots skating five-on-five — with a sharp second period to keep the Islanders even long enough to finally break through.

Horvat, behind the crease, found Anders Lee in the slot for a quick wrister to beat Anton Forsberg (21 saves) to make it 1-0 at 15:49 of the second period, the first time in six games the Islanders scored first. Horvat then pushed the puck ahead to Pageau, who got to the net for a 2-0 lead at 18:22 of the second period.

Notes & quotes: Lee extended his point streak to four games . . . Defensemen Alexander Romanov (upper body) and Mike Reilly (concussion) remain day-to-day and did not make the trip . . . Defenseman Ryan Pulock logged 24:44 in his 500th NHL game . . . Dobson logged a game-high 28:14 . . . Martin drew in on the fourth line for Hudson Fasching after being a healthy scratch the previous three games.

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.