The Islanders and Sharks spent Monday night trading chances, then trading punches, and eventually settled things the only way neither side seemed able to avoid: a shootout that dragged on forever.
San Jose came out with the 3-2 win after the first 15 shootout attempts were turned aside. Ivar Stenberg finally solved Ilya Sorokin, while Yaroslav Askarov stopped all eight Islanders tries to lock it down for the Sharks.
Before it got to the skills contest, the game kept veering from messy to mean. Both teams scored on the power play, including one Sharks goal that came after a rough call on Kyle MacLean when Macklin Celebrini went down in the neutral zone. That left the game tied 2-2 heading into the final stretch of the second period, and the temperature only climbed from there.
The second-period finish turned into a full-on scrap. Shoves were traded, threats were exchanged, and then MacLean fought Ty Dellandrea while Mitchell Chaffee went with Barclay Goodrow. Chaffee had the upper hand over Goodrow, and Dellandrea left MacLean with a cut on his cheek.
The third period brought more of the same. Victor Eklund, who had a strong night and scored a nice power-play one-timer, threw a hit into Kiefer Sherwood’s body and ended up on top of him. Sherwood had already gotten his own moment of swagger by pulling Eklund out of a scrum late in the second period to show up the teenager.
Then Mason Marchment jumped into the chaos, started a scrum and threw ungloved punches at Eklund while the Islanders forward was tied up, including by the linesman. The officials initially sent Eklund to the box for five minutes so they could review the play on Sherwood, but after looking at it they ruled no penalty on Eklund and gave Marchment a double-minor instead.
The Islanders’ power play then did what it has been doing too often, but this time the second unit created more trouble than offense. Ondrej Palat took a lazy hook after a turnover, and then Anthony Duclair was called for tripping on the same sequence after the play should have been blown dead when he knocked away a Sharks pass in the slot.
Still, the Islanders got a strong kill out of it. Ilya Sorokin, J-G Pageau, Bo Horvat and Adam Pelech helped wipe out the two-minute 4-on-3, and the score stayed deadlocked with less than 10 minutes left.
Neither team could finish in regulation. There were a few half-chances down the stretch, including an uncomfortable rush and wraparound try from Stenberg just before the horn. OT brought more Sorokin stops and a clean look for Horvat, who missed wide on a backhand breakaway chance, but the game was headed for the shootout no matter what.
That’s where both goalies took over. Sorokin and Askarov were locked in, shooters kept guessing, and even Matthew Schaefer got his first career shootout attempt. It didn’t go well.
One of the quieter frustrations for the Islanders was how often the Sharks’ defense pinched down the blue line and shut off breakout passes, over and over again without much adjustment.
Kyle Palmieri was one of the Islanders’ best sources of pressure, creating several good looks on his own. He’s coming off ACL surgery and has one goal in his last 10 games, but he at least looked like more scoring could be coming. His shootout attempt, though, was not convincing.
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