NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Once you got past the Semyon Varlamov of it all on Tuesday, there was the matter of the hockey the Islanders played in beating the Predators 4-3 in a shootout.
After coach Pete DeBoer went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen and essentially challenged his team following a loss in Dallas he said was their first poor performance all season, the Islanders responded in kind.
It wasn’t perfect — actually, it was nearly disastrous, as the Islanders fumbled a 3-0 lead, then failed to score with nearly four minutes at 4-on-3 in overtime — but DeBoer’s side had the qualities they’d lacked against the Stars.
They were up ice and physical, their passes crisp and their battle level high. The best example all night came at the start of the second period, when the Islanders passed the puck around the zone for nearly a minute without pause before Matthew Schaefer’s feed across gave Bo Horvat a one-timer to rocket past Juuse Saros and make it 3-0.
“We got back to our identity tonight,” Brayden Schenn said. “We know we have to play that way in order to be successful. It’s a gritty, hard-nosed game. Play good defense.”
Of course, that alone didn’t mean this was easy.
The Islanders let the Predators back in on Filip Forsberg’s power-play goal at 9:42 of the second, making it 3-1, and from there, things got hairy.
Just over three minutes later, off a rare Matthew Schaefer turnover when the defenseman got crossed up with Ondrej Palat trying to exit the zone, Alexander Kerfoot got the Predators within 3-2.
When the Islanders’ fourth power play of the night went nowhere — just as their first three had — the Predators wasted no time in making them pay. Daemon Hunt’s initial shot trickled through Varlamov’s pads before Ryan O’Reilly stuffed it in to tie the game at 4:16 of the third.
The Islanders were on their heels late in regulation, requiring a few scrambling defensive shifts to get the game to overtime, but they would eventually earn the extra point.
After Schaefer was tripped at the start of overtime, the Islanders exhausted the Predators for a ridiculous 1:45 on a delayed call before Nashville finally got a touch.
Still, somehow, the Islanders — opting to leave Schaefer, Bo Horvat and Simon Holmstrom out for well over four minutes of overtime, and Schaefer for all five — couldn’t convert on the power play itself. (Schaefer, who finished with a career-high 32:16 of ice, is the first player to go all five minutes of overtime in the post-lockout era.)
Shootout goals from Kyle Palmieri and Horvat sealed it anyway.
“I thought it was a great response, and I knew we would get that response,” DeBoer said. “I think the guys knew and came out and played great.”
