The New York Islanders will be out to split their four-game road trip Monday night when they play the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Islanders have lost two in a row on their trip after dropping a 5-2 decision to the Dallas Stars on Saturday.

One positive the Islanders can take from the loss at Dallas is that Mathew Barzal scored his first two goals of the season. He had produced 19 assists without a goal in the previous 18 games.

“I’m excited to score whether it’s my first or my 15th,” Barzal said. “I wasn’t worried about it.”

His goals gave the Islanders 1-0 and 2-1 leads.

“We all knew it was coming,” said Anders Lee, who had an assist on Barzal’s second goal. “So now we can stop worrying about that and start seeing him do it more often. I don’t think that was as big a deal as it got made up.”

Allowing five goals, on the other hand, wasn’t an ideal outcome.

“Defensively, in our zone, we had a couple of breakdowns,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert said. “When we broke down, they took advantage of us, and it’s just something that we have to correct.”

“I thought we played a pretty good game,” center Kyle Palmieri said. “It just wasn’t enough to win, and that’s what matters at the end of the day.”

The Islanders opened their trip with a 4-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Monday before losing 5-4 to the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

The Maple Leafs defeated the Buffalo Sabres 5-2 on Saturday and will finish a three-game homestand Monday before going on a four-game road trip.

Maple Leafs goaltender Matt Murray made 32 saves against the Sabres to record his first home win of the season. After not playing since Oct. 12 because of a groin injury, Murray has started three consecutive games. The surging New Jersey Devils won 3-2 in overtime Thursday in Murray’s home debut.

“This has been a long time coming for me, getting into a home game and I’m having a lot of fun,” Murray said. “I’m trying to keep getting better as I go.”

“Defensively we were exceptional (Saturday),” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Between how we defended and how Matt played, we were a tough team to beat tonight. Between the penalties (Toronto took six minors), their best people touching the puck a lot and getting lots of shots, that’s where Murray was just outstanding. We talked about waiting for opportunities that would come.”

William Nylander scored twice for Toronto Saturday and has 10 goals for the season. John Tavares also scored his 10th goal of the season and added two assists. Mitchell Marner had two assists to extend his points streak to 12 games, one short of his career best. He has three goals and 14 assists during that span.

“I just feel like I’m doing me, as usual, trying to buzz out there,” Marner said. “Hold on to the puck and make the plays that I can, get pucks towards the net. Just try to get myself in areas I can make plays from and if not, just get them towards the net for rebounds or second opportunities. I’m lucky enough to have great people who can put the pucks in.”

Toronto is 6-1-3 in the past 10 games.

“Even though we haven’t played perfect games, we’ve lost one game in regulation since coming back from that California trip,” Keefe said. “So, a lot of good things happening.”

–Field Level Media

Most of the time, regardless of the result, the Carolina Hurricanes put a positive spin on how they’ve played.

That was far from the case their last time out, after a rare lackluster outing in a 2-1 overtime loss at Minnesota.

The Hurricanes will try to put the memory of that game behind them when they take the ice Monday night against the host Winnipeg Jets.

“The fact that we got a point out of that game is a miracle in my opinion,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We were god-awful. When you have two or three guys playing and the rest were just going through the motions, that’s what you get.”

Brind’Amour might have a decision to make regarding goaltending. Pyotr Kochetkov has been strong since arriving from AHL affiliate Chicago because of an injury to top netminder Frederik Andersen.

Generally, the Hurricanes have rotated Antti Raanta and Kochetkov, so Monday would be Raanta’s turn.

Of more concern for Brind’Amour will be his skaters. The coach is not likely to stand idly by if the Hurricanes produce another subpar outing.

“That’s what you get in this league if you don’t have 20 guys (going strong),” Brind’Amour said after Carolina mustered 21 shots on goal and went 0-for-2 on the power play. “I hate wasting a game. That’s what we did. Turn the page.”

The Hurricanes will aim to revive their aggressiveness.

“Sitting back wasn’t the greatest game plan,” captain Jordan Staal said.

Despite the poor outing, the Hurricanes have created a reputation as a relentless team that puts opponents on notice. The Jets will be ready for that as they wrap up a three-game homestand.

“We’re looking forward to that challenge,” Jets center Adam Lowry said. “We know they have a lot of speed, they defend really well. They kind of roll all four lines and they come at you. It’s going to be a great test for us.”

The Jets have won eight of their last 11 and lost for just the second time this month on Saturday night. Yet compared to the Hurricanes, there was a different perspective from the Jets after the 3-0 setback to Pittsburgh.

“You have nights it just doesn’t go in,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “That’s hockey. If we weren’t getting those chances, we’d be upset. We had enough chances to score.”

The Jets had a five-game home-ice winning streak snapped. Saturday also marked the first time they had been blanked this season.

Jets winger Nikolaj Ehlers will have surgery for a sports hernia in the coming days, a development announced during the weekend. It allows the Jets to add a short-term replacement to their roster rather than wondering when Ehlers, who hasn’t played since the second game of the season, might return.

“It was slower progress (than we anticipated), but we didn’t push it and we gave it a little extra time, hoping to try and avoid this (surgery),” Bowness said. “So it came to this.”

Ehlers scored 20 or more goals for Winnipeg in each of the past six seasons. He had 28 goals and 27 assists in 62 games last year.

–Field Level Media

Thirty-nine years ago Saturday, Wayne Gretzky uttered his most famous quote after he collected a hat trick and finished with eight points in the Edmonton Oilers’ rout of the New Jersey Devils.

“Well, it’s time they got their act together,” Gretzky said. “They’re ruining the whole league. They had better stop running a Mickey Mouse organization and put somebody on the ice.”

On Monday night, the Devils can provide more proof of how far they’ve come in the last four decades — and in the last month — by chasing a record-tying victory against the Oilers when the teams face off in Newark, N.J.

Both teams earned wins Saturday. The red-hot Devils recorded their 12th straight victory after cruising past the host Ottawa Senators, 5-1. The Oilers concluded a two-game homestand by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 in overtime.

New Jersey’s 12-game winning streak is the second-longest in franchise history and one shy of tying the record 13-game run produced from Feb. 26 through March 23, 2001. At the time the Devils were the defending Stanley Cup champion and in the midst of a 24-season stretch in which they qualified for the playoffs 21 times, won the Cup three times and made two additional trips to the Finals.

The Devils of recent vintage haven’t quite fallen to the depths of the early ’80s — the infamous 13-4 loss to Gretzky and the Oilers on Nov. 19, 1983 dropped that team to 2-18-0 — but this winning streak has vaulted New Jersey back into what had become unfamiliar air.

The Devils have missed the playoffs nine times in 10 seasons since the Stanley Cup Finals in the spring of 2012 and opened this season with consecutive 5-2 losses to the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings. But New Jersey has outscored the opposition 64-32 over the last 16 games, including 51-22 during the winning streak.

On Saturday night, the Devils scored a power-play goal and a short-handed goal while third-string goalie Akira Schmid made 25 saves.

“When you get on a run like this, (there’s) a lot of good things that can happen,” Devils coach Lindy Ruff said Saturday. “I thought tonight was a total team game.”

The win over the Golden Knights continued a hot-and-cold stretch for the Oilers, who have alternated losses with wins over their last six games and haven’t won back-to-back games since a five-game winning streak from Oct. 24 through Nov. 1.

The Oilers’ last three wins have all come against elite teams. Prior to edging the Golden Knights — who lead the Western Conference with 29 points — on Connor McDavid’s game-winner 1:17 into overtime, Edmonton beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, which won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 and reached the Finals last spring, and knocked off the Florida Panthers, last year’s President’s Trophy winners.

The Devils’ game starts a three-game road trip for the Oilers. Edmonton visits the New York Islanders on Wednesday before facing the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s fun to play good teams,” said Oilers center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who had three assists Saturday. “You’ve got to rise to the occasion and (Vegas) has been one of the hottest teams in the league so far. So we knew that coming in and obviously we needed to step our game up. To get the two points against that team is definitely big and we’ve got to keep that feeling going on the road here.”

–Field Level Media

Two of the three hottest clubs in the Eastern Conference will meet for the first time this season when the Boston Bruins visit the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.

Under first-year coach Jim Montgomery, the Atlantic Division-leading Bruins have won six straight games and 16 of 18 to begin the season.

Boston dropped a 7-5 decision at the Ottawa Senators in the fourth game of the season on Oct. 18. Montgomery’s group also lost 2-1 at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 5.

That’s it.

In Saturday’s 6-1 home rout of the Chicago Blackhawks, the Bruins tied an NHL record with 11 straight home victories to start a season. After games at the Lightning and Florida Panthers (on Wednesday), the team will have a chance to own the high mark on Friday afternoon when the Carolina Hurricanes come to Beantown.

“It’s a special team,” said Boston captain Patrice Bergeron, who had a goal and an assist on Thursday to increase his point total to 999 in his career.

“We have a lot of depth, and I think it shows. Everyone is contributing, everyone is valued, and I think everyone has confidence, and I think that’s the biggest thing, right?”

Defenseman Charlie McAvoy handed out four assists and David Pastrnak scored twice to give him 11 goals on the season. Backup goaltender Jeremy Swayman made 17 saves.

Top goalie Linus Ullmark leads the league in wins (12), goals-against average (1.89) and save percentage (.937).

Tampa Bay erased a one-goal deficit late in the third period before rallying to a 3-2 win in overtime against the Nashville Predators on Saturday. Captain Steven Stamkos scored the winning goal in overtime.

Usually lurking around the top of the left circle on the Lightning’s man-advantage unit, Stamkos was positioned at the point in a unique scenario. A feed from Nikita Kucherov was all Stamkos needed to finish off the Predators.

Stamkos has three goals and four assists on his four-game point streak.

The sharpshooting Stamkos said the triumph could serve as a pattern for success.

“It was just one of those games when you grind one out,” Stamkos said. “It was a solid game. I don’t think we gave up much. It’s more of a recipe for us to follow to continue to get points.”

“It’s a 60-minute game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We talked about how we don’t have to hurry up and win this game. We’ll win it at some point if we just stick with what we’re doing and they did. It takes discipline to do that, but they stuck with it.”

Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev had an assist to boost his point streak to four games (two goals, six assists).

Sidelined after offseason shoulder surgery, defenseman Zach Bogosian logged 15:58 of ice time with seven hits in his season debut.

Following its game against the Bruins, Tampa Bay will host the St. Louis Blues on Friday night.

–Field Level Media