The Islanders got the two points they needed, and they had to sweat for every last inch of them.
New York built a 2-0 first-period lead against a Vancouver team coming in on a skid, then spent much of the middle frame making life hard on itself. The Canucks took advantage of the Islanders’ sloppier stretch, and what had looked like a clean night quickly turned into a fight to the finish before Kyle Palmieri delivered the winner in a 3-2 Islanders victory.
Palmieri opened the scoring with his first goal after surgery, redirecting a floating point shot from Matt Kessel, who was making his Islanders debut. Later in the period, Matias Maccelli buried his first goal as an Islander with a shot upstairs to make it 2-0.
Then came the second period, and the Islanders lost the grip. Passes missed their marks, turnovers piled up in the neutral zone, and the penalties kept coming. Max Sasson finished a counterattack at 7:52 to get Vancouver on the board, and Brock Boeser tied it late on the power play.
The tension boiled over at the second-period buzzer, with a scrum that left Tony DeAngelo as the only player in the box to start the third. Vancouver already had power-play momentum, and with another man advantage to open the final period, the game had every chance to tilt the wrong way for the Islanders.
Instead, Palmieri bailed them out again.
After another Matthew Schaefer-led rush created the danger, Palmieri fired a hard shot through traffic from the high slot for the go-ahead goal. Schaefer picked up his sixth assist of the season on the play, while Maccelli added his fourth assist, continuing to look comfortable after his mid-game promotion.
Schaefer kept driving the action all night. He was the kind of player who forces your attention, because whenever he carried the puck, there was danger attached to it. He walked defenders back, left them off balance, and kept creating chances whether he was skating up the blueline, cutting into the high slot or finding a teammate after drawing multiple bodies toward him.
There was even a flashpoint tied to that kind of shift-changing talent. One of the scrums came after Elias Pettersson went after Bo Horvat shortly after Schaefer had made him look foolish at the blueline.
But the night belonged to Palmieri, who looked like the veteran who had his legs under him from the start. The 35-year-old, who assisted on a goal with a torn ACL in his final act last season, also played a key role on the forecheck that helped create the keep-in on his first goal.
Kessel’s debut was a noteworthy subplot, and it came as something of a surprise given the morning optional skate and last practice. Scott Mayfield was scratched, while Kessel stepped in and found himself in the middle of the action early when he lost his footing crashing the net on a rush and drew a restrained rebuke from Luke Schenn.
With Romanov injured and Mayfield no longer locked into the lineup, Kessel’s first appearance gave the Islanders another wrinkle to monitor moving forward.
In Other News...
Mathew Barzal Found Unexpected Inspiration During His Injury Comeback
Mathew Barzals road back from a knee injury has been a long one, but an unexpected moment on live television gave the Islanders forward a boost he probably did not see coming. During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Barzal was surprised by Tommy Ryan, a fan whose connection to the team and to Barzal goes back to Ryans hospitalization, when he credited the Islanders for helping him get through leukemia treatment.
The relationship has grown from there, including a previous meeting at UBS Arena, and Ryans presence clearly hit home for Barzal as he continues working his way through recovery. For a player trying to navigate the patience and grind of coming back, finding motivation in the story of a fan who drew strength from him in the first place is a reminder that these ties can run both ways. [Read more 🡒]
Matthew Schaefer Is Giving Islanders Fans A Massive Reason To Believe
At 19, Matthew Schaefer is already logging a workload that would be notable for a veteran, let alone a rookie defenseman. The Islanders are trusting him with 25:26 of ice time per game, and even in a role that still leaves him with limited shorthanded duty, his influence has been obvious every night hes on the ice.
The numbers back up what the eye test suggests. Schaefers underlying profile includes a 54.9% expected goals share and 3.52 expected goals for per 60 minutes, markers of a player driving play rather than just surviving it. With that kind of start, it is easy to see why the conversation around him is already stretching far beyond this season and into the kind of upside that can reshape a blue line. [Read more 🡒]
Islanders Got The Exact Boost They Needed In A Tight Win
Kyle Palmieri gave the Islanders exactly the kind of lift they had been waiting for in a 3-2 win over the Canucks, scoring twice and finishing the night with the deciding goal. It was the sort of timely contribution New York needed in a tight game, and it came with the added significance of Palmieri continuing to work his way back after ACL surgery, a process the team has been watching closely.
Matias Maccelli also fit neatly into the picture, scoring his first goal as an Islander and helping create the winner after getting moved up to the top line. Head coach Pete DeBoer praised both players afterward, pointing to Palmieris return and Maccellis motivation and performance as encouraging signs for a team looking for more reliable offense when the margins are thin. [Read more 🡒]