The Islanders were potentially one more loss away from dropping into a tie for first place in the Metropolitan Division on Tuesday.
Johnny Boychuk, though, insisted he wasn’t aware of that fact.
“I haven’t even noticed what place we’re in,” said Boychuk, whose third-period goal helped seal a 5-1 win over the Coyotes at the Nassau Coliseum. “I just come to the rink. We’ve done a good job of winning, so you don’t want to change anything because of what some other teams might be doing.”
That attitude worked again against Arizona, as the Isles broke open what had been a tie game entering the third with four goals in the final period.
Matt Martin scored the game-winner at 3:18 and Boychuk added the first of several insurance goals less than a minute later.
Chad Johnson, getting the start in goal, allowed just a second-period goal to Mark Arcobello that made it 1-1 after Anders Lee scored the first goal of the night 37 seconds into the period.
With the victory, the Islanders remained two points ahead of the Rangers.
Earlier in the game, head coach Jack Capuano started mixing his lines thanks to a messy scoreless first period.
He got results in the second.
“We changed the lineups quite a bit to try to get things going,” said Capuano, who added it was an easier decision to make thanks to the production the team has gotten from throughout its roster.
“Top to bottom, guys contributed,” Capuano said. “You’re going to see more of everybody. We’ve got a good team and guys deserve to be in the lineup.”
That includes Lee, who scored his 20th of the season. Though on the surface that number might seem surprising, it isn’t to Capuano, who has been impressed by Lee’s willingness to attack the goal.
“When you go to net, good things happen,” Capuano said. “When you go to the net, you’re going to score goals.”
The rest of the team followed suit in the third, with Kael Mouillierat scoring his first NHL goal to make it 4-1 and Brock Nelson finishing the scoring with his 17th. Mouillierat also notched his first NHL assist.
“We just kept playing,” Martin said of the success in the third.
“In that third period I thought we wore them down,” Johnson said. “It’s our character to not get down.”
Boychuk has been a part of that.
“We just kept doing the right things and eventually we got opportunities and capitalized on them,” Boychuk said. “We worked and got rewarded.”
Boychuk said he was confident the Islanders would avoid a third straight loss as they headed to the third, despite the inconsistent play in the first two periods.
“We have a lot of threats on our team,” Boychuk said. “You might not expect four goals in a row like that, but you do expect good things to happen.”
That has helped keep them atop the standings, even if Boychuk doesn’t pay much attention.
“You kind of do, but you can’t get too worked up about it,” Boychuk said. “You just worry about your team. If you get too caught up in that stuff, you can lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish.”