Shorthanded Islanders Down Sabres 4-3: Pelech, Reilly Injured

The New York Islanders (4-5-2) defeated the Buffalo Sabres (4-6-1) 4-3 Friday night in the KeyBank Center. Bo Horvat showed his mettle as a leader, scoring a big goal and having the primary assist on Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s eventual game-winning goal.

Maxim Tsyplakov scored his second goal of the season and had the primary assist on Kyle Palmieri’s power-play goal. The goal marked Palmieri’s team-leading fifth goal of the season as he continued his torrid start to the year.

Ilya Sorokin had to be sharp, and he was, as he turned away 32/35 shots. His highlight of the night came when he denied Jason Zucker’s third-period penalty shot. Devon Levi stopped 32 of 36 shots for the Sabres in the defeat.

Quick Recap:

Dylan Cozens scored his first of the year to kick things off, making it 1-0 for Buffalo on the power play. After an efficient kill, Adam Pelech took a penalty less than a minute after the first minor expired. The goal came off a Rasmus Dahlin shot deflecting backdoor off Zucker to Cozens, who slammed it in.

40 seconds later, Bo Horvat gave his team and Islanders fans everywhere a reason to breathe. Anders Lee sent a perfect blind pass to a streaking Horvat through the neutral zone. Horvat came in, made his move, beat Levi with a smooth move to his backhand, and chipped the puck off Levi’s pad and in.

Chaotic Second Period:

Tsyplakov took a sloppy slashing penalty early in the second period before Kyle MacLean apparently took a tripping penalty when he cleanly forechecked Dahlin off the puck. It gave Buffalo 25 seconds of 5-on-3 time, but the Islanders killed both effectively.

Tsyplakov made up for his penalty and scored his first goal since the season opener on an incredible individual effort. He came through his back check, stole the puck, and did something he hadn’t done enough of- used speed. Tsyplakov used speed to rush through center ice before just undressing Connor Clifton and slipping it cleanly through Levi’s five-hole.

After Tsyplakov’s goal, the Islanders saw all three of their left-handed defensemen exit the game and head down the tunnel with injuries. Adam Pelech and Mike Reilly would not return. Alexander Romanov returned after Reilly exited with his scary injury, which saw the stretcher wheeled out but eventually go unused.

The Islanders’ morale had to be extremely testy at that point. After the Columbus game, the team lost Mat Barzal to injury and witnessed Reilly go down in a scary way. Then, Bowen Byram took an obvious hooking penalty on Tsyplakov, giving the Islanders a big opportunity to double the lead.

The ensuing power play led to the best power-play goal of the season for the Islanders. All five attackers touched the puck with successive passes before Palmieri rifled his shot. Simon Holmstrom made a nice pass to Tsyplakov down low, who made a behind-the-back pass to Palmieri across the middle of the ice. Rarely can you say that’s how it got drawn up, but that’s about as close to the perfect special teams goal as you can get.

Third Period:

Entering the third up 3-1, the Islanders needed to hang on for the win. They’ve already blown past their quota of blown third-period leads for the year in October. The Sabres, also needing a win, came out pushing hard. Eventually, Zucker won his penalty shot. Zucker moved in with some speed to his forehand before he cut back to his backhand, where Sorokin stretched to make a great pad save.

On the ensuing play, Casey Cizikas failed to break the puck out and wound up in the back of the Islanders’ net. A floating shot from Tage Thompson deflected off Zucker, over Sorokin, and in. An unlucky bounce in a season filled with those for the Islanders. You could feel the game potentially slipping. Down to just four defensemen, the Islanders had to dig as deep as they could to get the win.

Less than three minutes later, Horvat made another massive play. Horvat led a rush in and fed Lee. Lee’s shot missed wide but bounced perfectly to Horvat, who put it back in front where Pageau got just enough of the puck to slide it past an unsuspecting Levi.

The goal held up despite a furious late rally by the Sabres. Lee missed a wide-open cage after Levi vacated it, and the Sabres came right back down the ice to make it 4-3 with 61 seconds to play. The Islanders held on and snapped their three-game skid with their first regulation win since Colorado in game three of the season.

The Injuries:

The win came with the big negative of those defensemen injuries for the Islanders, though. Those specifically are the injuries to Pelech and Reilly. Pelech took a puck to the face in the second period, left in serious pain, holding his face, and did not return.

Reilly had a very scary injury when Jordan Greenway threw a big but clean hit on Reilly along the wall. Reilly fell over, and his head smacked on the ice. Initially, the stretcher came out due to Reilly’s inability to get up. Eventually, Reilly received help and woozily made his way off the ice with help from the trainers, Palmieri and Captain Anders Lee.

Reilly’s injury also occurred during the second period. When he went down, the Islanders had four defensemen left. Romanov also missed a chunk of time when Greenway dropped him with a hit that seemed to possibly re-aggravate Romanov’s upper-body injury.  Romanov returned when Reilly left.

What’s Next:

The Islanders close out their three-game road trip with the first showdown with the New York Rangers on Sunday afternoon at 1. It’s also the day of the NYC Marathon, along with a New York Giants game across the river in New Jersey. It’s safe to say the city will be active on Sunday.

After that, the Islanders host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night in UBS Arena. A pair of Metropolitan Division foes await the Islanders after they clawed out of the basement on Friday night.