Islanders fall to Wild, lose second straight at home
Jared Spurgeon and Sam Steel of the Wild defend against Mathew Barzal of the Islanders during the first period at UBS Arena on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Ilya Sorokin did everything he could to steal a win for the struggling Islanders.
Instead, his teammates literally gave it away, again failing to capitalize on the goalie’s brilliant play.
The Wild scored all of their goals in the third period for a 3-1 win on Thursday night at UBS Arena as the Islanders, who had 23 giveaways compared to Minnesota’s five, saw their skid grow to 0-3-1. They’ve dropped the first two of their five-game homestand.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” said defenseman Scott Mayfield, who scored the Islanders’ lone goal but also took two penalties and had a costly turnover. “Their goalie played really well, too. We couldn’t find a way to beat him. We made some costly mistakes.”
“Coming out of the zone a couple times, we just weren’t clean with it,” said Anders Lee, who credited the Wild with causing turnovers. “Good forechecking teams will do that. We just shot ourselves in the foot a little bit too much.”
The Islanders (22-18-3) went 5-for-5 on the penalty kill, but the Wild (23-14-4) scored the equalizer while shorthanded. Sorokin finished with 33 saves and the Wild’s Filip Gustavsson made 19.
“I thought we started the game fine and created some chances in the second period,” coach Lane Lambert said. “But, overall, we took too many penalties and couldn’t really get into a complete rhythm or a complete flow. Then we give up a shorthanded goal and then the second one right away. So that one stings.”
Even the Wild’s shorthanded goal appeared, at first, to be a miraculous save by Sorokin, who has allowed a combined six goals in his last three starts and lost each one.
Joel Eriksson Ek sent a cross-ice feed to a wide-open Frederick Gaudreau, but Sorokin made a sprawling glove save. However, after a video review, it was ruled the puck crossed the goal line while in Sorokin’s glove at 10:55.
Mayfield’s turnover led to Mats Zuccarello finding Sam Steel open to Sorokin’s left as the Wild took a 2-1 lead at 12:28 of the third period. Kirill Kaprizov added an empty-netter.
“Whenever you give up a shorthanded goal, that’s going to take momentum away,” Mayfield said. “But we got some chances on the power play and couldn’t convert. That’s just how it was tonight.”
The Islanders went 0-for-3 on the power play with five shots.
Sorokin made 17 saves in the second period to preserve the Islanders’ one-goal lead. That included a glove save on defenseman Jon Merrill’s rebound attempt from the left circle at 14:21 and going into a split to stop Sam Steel’s redirection just over a minute later.
“It’s frustrating, for sure,” defenseman Noah Dobson said. “Two goals [allowed] the last two games. Two great performances by Ilya. It’s not good enough. We’ve got to find a way to find the back of the net.”
The Islanders led 1-0 after a low-event first period as the teams had a combined 10 shots and 27 chances. Mayfield snapped a 26-game goal drought dating to Nov. 12 by tying his career high with his fifth of the season, flicking the puck from the right point through traffic at 16:49.
The Islanders opened the homestand with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Stars on Tuesday night as Sorokin made 25 saves.
“We aren’t happy with the results,” Lambert said. “I did think we played well last game and we were fine for the majority of the game tonight. Our penalty-killing did an outstanding job. Our power play generated chances. We made a couple of mistakes and right now, the way things are going, these mistakes are costing us.”
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.
