Islanders routed by Penguins after allowing six goals in second period
Jake Guentzel #59 of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates his first goal of the second period against Ilya Sorokin #30 of the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023 in Elmont, New York. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Whatever Christmas cheer or good feelings the Islanders had heading into the NHL’s three-day holiday break evaporated during their most brutal 20 minutes of hockey this season. The Penguins humiliated them as the season resumed.
“You can imagine what it felt like,” Mathew Barzal said. “It wasn’t fun.”
The Penguins scored six times in lopsided second period as the defensively-challenged Islanders lost 7-0 on Wednesday night at UBS Arena. To be fair, the Islanders were offensively-challenged as well as a 6-0-3 run at home — the longest point streak they’ve had in three seasons in their new building — was snapped.
It was just the third regulation loss for the Islanders (16-9-9) since Nov. 15.
“We’ll be talking about this for sure,” captain Anders Lee said. “It’s the part that’s just unacceptable. We didn’t stop the bleeding when we needed to. We didn’t have the response that we needed. The way nights are going to go sometimes, they’re not always going to go your way. But the tenacity, the bite, what it takes to stop something like that wasn’t there.”
“It’s all fixable,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We weren’t hard enough in our zone. We weren’t hard enough around our goaltender and we gave up the interior at the net front far too easily. Very uncharacteristic of us. All fixable.”
Ilya Sorokin, who allowed six goals on 20 shots behind a porous defensive effort in the second period and stopped 19 shots overall, was replaced by Semyon Varlamov (six saves) to start the third period. It was the first time Sorokin had been pulled this season.
Tristan Jarry made 22 saves for the Penguins (16-13-4), 11 of them in the third period with the game long decided. The Islanders were shut out for the second time.
“It was pretty ugly,” Brock Nelson said. “For whatever reason we were the team that wasn’t really ready and felt a little unorganized. A little off. Unacceptable really. Not a whole lot of good to take from that one. We just need to be better.”
The Penguins’ second-period blitz — they outshot the Islanders 20-7 and, at one point it was 10-1 in the period — began with Rickard Rakell getting to the crease to knock in a loose puck on a play that was twice video reviewed. Jake Guentzel then tipped in defenseman Kris Letang’s shot from the right point to make it 2-0 at 10:15.
Letang tied an NHL record by becoming the second player with five assists in a period. He had six overall.
Lambert then called a timeout but Rakell sprung Guentzel for a breakaway off the ensuing faceoff to make it 3-0 as the Penguins scored twice within 12 seconds.
“You don’t see that very often,” Lambert said. “What did I emphasize [during the timeout]? We had to wake up. There was a lot of hockey game left. Clearly it didn’t work this time.”
“It was brutal,” Barzal said. “It’s what it is. We were having trouble with boxing out and breakaways and two-on-ones. We’ve got to clean up some things. As a group, it’s unacceptable for us to give that kind of performance in front of our fans. We’ll be ready in two days.”
The Islanders host the Capitals on Friday before starting a four-game road trip against the Penguins on Sunday.
Evgeni Malkin, open in the slot and then at the left post, scored the next two to make it 5-0 at 16:06 and Radim Zohorna capped the second-period carnage at 17:13 as he was open at the left post. It was the 10th time in franchise history the Islanders had allowed six goals in a period.
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.
