Matthew Schaefer, the player most responsible for the New York Islanders’ surprising turnaround this season, may not play Tuesday night.
But the Islanders will get back one of their biggest foundational pieces when goalie Ilya Sorokin starts against the New Jersey Devils in a battle of longtime Metropolitan Division rivals in Elmont, N.Y.
The Islanders last played Saturday, when Schaefer capped a two-goal night by scoring the game-winner in overtime to lift New York past the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3. The Devils completed a back-to-back home set by suffering a 3-1 loss to the Metropolitan-leading Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday night.
Despite battling the flu, Schaefer logged 22-plus minutes and sparked the victory by scoring the first of the Islanders’ two game-tying goals in the third period.
In overtime, Schaefer took a nifty behind-the-back pass from Mathew Barzal — the most recent New York player to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie — and beat Joseph Woll from the slot to set off a wild celebration at UBS Arena and keep the Islanders in second place in the Metropolitan Division.
The overtime game-winner was the second of the season for Schaefer, who also scored to beat the Utah Mammoth 3-2 on Nov. 14. The 18-year-old, who was the no. 1 pick in last June’s draft, is the youngest player in NHL history with multiple overtime goals as well as the youngest defenseman with two multi-goal games and the youngest defenseman to record 12 goals.
“Schaefer put on a heck of a show in the third period,” Islanders head coach Patrick Roy said. “He’s a game-changer.”
Schaefer missed Monday’s practice due to illness. Roy said he will be a game-time decision Tuesday night, when Sorokin will return following a seven-game absence due to an unspecified injury. Backup goalie David Rittich helped the Islanders to a 4-2-1 record without Sorokin, who shares the franchise lead in shutouts (25) and has the highest save percentage of anyone with more than 200 appearances (.916).
The Devils squandered a chance to build some momentum Sunday night, when they were 0-for-5 on the power play and defenseman Luke Hughes committed two own goals to account for the Hurricanes’ first two scores.
The power-play performance was the worst for the Devils since Nov. 6, when they were also 0-for-5 on the man advantage in a 4-3 overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens.
“Special teams can win you or lose you games,” Devils center Dawson Mercer said. “Those are opportunities that we want to make sure we can try to put a puck in the back of the net to definitely give us some more positive momentum and help us win the game.”
The Devils couldn’t recover from the two momentum boosts Hughes provided the Hurricanes. Hughes accidentally put back the rebound of a redirect by Nikolaj Ehlers 51 seconds into the first before he lost control of the puck in the New Jersey crease while being pressured by Taylor Hall, who was credited with the game-winning goal with 12:13 left in the second.
Hughes was booed the rest of the evening by the home crowd.
“I’ve made those plays millions of times,” Hughes said. “(Sunday), just didn’t go my way.”
The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Devils, who have strung together three consecutive wins just once since an eight-game winning streak from Oct. 11-26. New Jersey has lost five of its last seven (2-4-1) to fall to 14-17-2 since the season-best surge.
–Field Level Media
