Islanders begin crucial run of Metro Division games

WASHINGTON — One of the consequences of the NHL limiting divisional play — the Islanders only play 26 of their 82 games against Metropolitan Division foes — is it places even more urgency on each of the contests as teams vie for playoff spots.

Wins are necessary, sure, but regulation victories are crucial so as not to cede the losers a point.

The Islanders certainly understand the implications as they open a two-game road trip that leads into the NHL's three-day Christmas break against the Capitals on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena. It marked the first of five straight games against divisional opponents through Dec. 31, their longest such stretch of the season.

“It’s great,” Anders Lee said before Wednesday’s faceoff. “We haven’t seen much of the Metro so far. It kind of works its way through the schedule here like this. We start getting into the division games. We know how important those are. How tight our division is and how it always seems to be. So a big two on the road coming up.”

The road trip also features a game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. The divisional stretch also includes a home-and-away with both the Capitals and Penguins.

 The Islanders played just one divisional match in their nine previous games before Wednesday. And after they end 2023 with a game in Pittsburgh, the Islanders will go 17 games before their next divisional contest, an outdoor showcase against the Rangers at MetLife Stadium on Feb. 18.

“It just feels like every game is huge right now,” said Bo Horvat, who brings a career-high 11-game point streak into Wednesday’s match. “We’ve got really big games coming up against teams that are playing really well right now and we’ve got to be at our best going into those games. It’s not going to be an easy two games before Christmas. It’s going to feel good to try and get these wins and go into the holidays with a couple of wins.”

Entering Wednesday, only five points separate the second-place Flyers from the sixth-place Devils in the Metropolitan Division. The Islanders are third with 38 points after Tuesday night’s clinical 3-1 win over the Oilers at UBS Arena, one point back of the Flyers. The Capitals are in fifth with 34 points but have played three fewer games than the Islanders.

The Islanders enter Wednesday’s game 5-2-3 within the division while the Capitals were 7-2-1.

“I think a lot of teams in our division for a long time have played hard hockey,” Lee said. “And hard hockey tends to put you in a good position and keeps you alive and can pull you into a good spot down the road. That’s been no different for our division for a long time. You’ve just got a lot of good hockey teams that put a lot of effort in and play hard.”

After this five-game run of divisional games, the Islanders’ most concentrated set of matches with the Metropolitan comes at the end of the season. The Islanders finish with three straight divisional games and play divisional opponents in four of their last five.

But the Islanders are not thinking that far ahead, or even the final three games of this stretch of Metropolitan contests.

The Islanders’ priority is heading into the holiday hiatus on a strong note.

“It’s massive games,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. “The message is clear here. We want to finish strong. We’ve been on a good stretch. We’ve been positive. If we put in the same effort day after day, the results will start coming and that’s what’s happening now.”

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.