The New York Islanders headed west Wednesday, secure in the awareness they would remain together after the trade deadline -- and growing increasingly confident in their ability to mount another playoff run with one of the NHL's oldest cores.
The Islanders will look to continue their hot streak Thursday night when they begin a four-game road trip by facing the San Jose Sharks.
Both teams were off Wednesday after playing at home Tuesday night.
The Islanders tied a season high with their fourth straight win, a come-from-behind 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues in Elmont, N.Y. The Sharks suffered their eighth straight loss (0-6-2) when they squandered a three-goal, third-period lead in a 7-6 overtime defeat against the Dallas Stars.
The win triumph over the Blues capped a feel-good day for the Islanders, whose general manager, Lou Lamoriello, said hours before faceoff he would not deal from the team's core ahead of the Friday deadline.
"As far as adding -- if you can, you do it," Lamoriello said. "Are we thinking about subtracting? Absolutely not."
While Lamoriello's teams have rarely been sellers, such a proclamation seemed unlikely as recently as Feb. 24, when New York lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2. A fifth defeat in six games (1-3-2) left the Islanders in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, seven points behind the Philadelphia Flyers in the race for third place in the Metropolitan Division and seven points back of the Lightning in the race for the final wild-card spot.
However, wins over a quartet of contenders have rejuvenated the Islanders, who have moved into ninth place in the East, four points behind the Flyers and four points behind the Lightning and Detroit Red Wings, who are tied for the wild-card berths.
A trio of Lamoriello-era trade deadline acquisitions fueled the comeback Tuesday for the Islanders, whose active roster against the Blues included 13 players who were on the New York teams that made consecutive trips to the NHL semifinals in 2020 and '21.
Kyle Palmieri and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, acquired at the deadline in 2021 and '20, scored in the second period to begin the comeback from a 2-0 deficit. Bo Horvat, who was acquired in January 2023, scored the tiebreaking goal in the third after his second-period turnovers led to the Blues' first two goals.
"It's having that same mindset to play as hard as you can and compete every shift," Pageau said. "I think everyone's starting to believe that if we do that, we'll win. Tonight we were down two and it's like we felt that we had a chance to come back and we did."
Being up by three more than midway through the third period wasn't enough for the Sharks, whose nightmarish season continued. The Stars scored three times in a span of less than three minutes before Roope Hintz collected the game-winner 1:49 into overtime.
It was just the fourth time this season an NHL team lost a game in which it scored at least six goals. The Sharks endured just the seventh such defeat in franchise history and their first since a 7-6 loss to the Blues on Feb. 27, 2021.
The Sharks have lost at least eight straight games three times this season.
"This one stings, probably worse than the 10-1, 10-2 losses," Sharks left winger Anthony Duclair said, referring to the consecutive defeats to the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins that were the final two losses of San Jose's season-opening, 11-game skid (0-10-1).
Duclair had two goals and two assists on Tuesday, and Fabian Zetterlund added a goal and two assists.
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