Even against the Avalanche, a one-goal lead wasn’t safe. Just last month, the Islanders left Colorado with a loss against the league’s worst team.
“Any team that’s had the year that they’ve had, you want to step on their throat, so to speak, when you get the opportunity,” captain John Tavares said. “You don’t want to give them any life.”
With an early third-period goal set up by Tavares — and two other game-sealing scores — the Islanders finished off the Avalanche in a 5-1 win Sunday night at Barclays Center, breathing more life into a season that once seemed lost.
When Jack Capuano was fired as coach Jan. 17, the Islanders had the fewest points in the Eastern Conference, but the team has gone 10-3-2 over the past 15 games to move within one point of the Maple Leafs for the second wild-card spot, heading into Tuesday’s battle in Toronto.
The Islanders (25-19-10) have won three of their past four games and have gone 7-0-2 in their past nine home games.
“I certainly believed in it,” Tavares said of the team’s run. “We knew the talent and work ethic and the right attitude was in here. … It’s such a long season and things get written off so early. I think we see how tight the East is. … There was a change with [interim coach Doug Weight] and we kept improving and we’ve made our games meaningful now.”
Less than 24 hours removed from their second shutout loss of the season, the Islanders surrendered the game’s first goal, but backup Jean-Francois Berube wouldn’t allow a series of strong chances to cross, finishing with 26 saves in a much-needed win.
After Nick Leddy evened the game with a wrist shot with 7:59 left in the first period, the Islanders offense stalled, struggling to break through again until a power-play opportunity late in the second period. Following a high-sticking penalty on Fedor Tyutin, the Islanders received 26 seconds with a 5-on-3 advantage, and took the lead with a pretty sequence, in which Leddy corralled a rebound and backhanded the puck to Tavares, who one-timed a pass across the ice to Ryan Strome for the goal with 5:14 left in the second period.
Holding the one-goal lead entering the third period, Weight waited to see if his team’s growth would continue.
“You have to step on throats, especially playing at home,” Weight said. “You get a little worried going into that third period. They get a break early, they get some belief.”
The Avalanche (15-36-2) had little time to build any belief. After Johnny Boychuk found Tavares in front, the star center fed a nifty pass under the glove of Calvin Pickard to Anders Lee, who slammed home an early insurance goal just 1:21 into the period.
Lee later notched a power-play goal — his team-leading 21st goal of the season — followed by Jason Chimera adding another.
“We wanted to come out hard and be aggressive in the third like we have been lately and we did a good job,” Tavares said. “We’ve been playing pretty well. We just didn’t want to have any lapses. … Anytime you can make it tough [for them], you know what that feeling can be like, when it’s almost like here we go again.”
That once familiar feeling has never felt so foreign.