Islanders Outlasted By Flyers In Shootout Loss

Elmont, NY– One of the great things about hockey is that there is no such thing as ties. But if neither team necessarily deserved to win, did anyone at the end of the day?

Sure, the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the New York Islanders by a final of 1-0 at UBS Arena in a shootout on Saturday night. But with both sides playing in the second half of a back-to-back and their third game in four nights, it’s hard to blame either for not putting on their best performance.

“It was a pretty ugly hockey game,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “It got better, especially in overtime when there were some chances on either side. When we had to grit it out, it wasn’t pretty at all.”

The game dragged while the players skated on tired legs, trying to muster any ounce of energy they had left in their tanks.

The only ones who seemed to have any were the ones standing between the posts as Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin and Philadelphia’s Samuel Ersson battled through 65 minutes of play. Eventually, though, it was Errson who won the war of attrition.

In the fourth round of the shootout, Tyson Foerster finally broke the stalemate by beating Sorokin with a shot glove side for the only goal scored in the game. Nevertheless, Sorokin was stellar against the Flyers, making 40 saves in regulation and overtime.

All the more impressive is that Sorokin played behind a weakened Islanders defense core, which was without Adam Pelech and Sebastian Aho.

NoahDobson played a total of 28:41 seconds in the game. In the past two nights, he’s accumulated 59:46 minutes of ice time.

“He’s stepped up to the plate,” Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said. “Conditioning-wise, he’s in great shape. He’s a young guy, I thought he handled it very well. There are moments when fatigue can set in. At those moments, when players are tired, that’s when you really find out about resilience.”

With Pelech and Aho out with injury, the Islanders inserted Samuel Bolduc into the lineup and recalled Grant Hutton from AHL Bridgeport on short notice.

“The good thing is that I’ve been in this position before,” Hutton said. “I kind of knew what to expect. I was watching the game last night, and I definitely knew there was a possibility they were going to need somebody.”

Saturday’s contest was the second between the Islanders and Flyers in the span of four days. In those two games, the Islanders have held the Flyers, one of the highest-scoring teams in the Eastern Conference, to just two goals.

“We feel we’re playing better defensively,” Lambert said. “It starts 200 feet away from our net, and we always have our goaltending. Certainly, they’re a high-powered transition team, and I thought we did a good job of staying above them.”

The Islanders still walked away with a point in the shootout loss, giving them 22 this season as they sit just one back of a playoff spot.

Beginning on Tuesday in New Jersey, the Islanders have a three-game road trip through the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff picture that they’ll surely need their energy for.

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