The New York Islanders are at the point in their season where the style of the wins hardly matters.
The Islanders know those wins need to start happening more frequently. They will get another chance at picking up a victory on Saturday afternoon when they host the Nashville Predators in Elmont, N.Y.
The Islanders reside seven points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot. New York trails five teams in the chase for a wild-card spot.
The Islanders are in this spot because this season is a search for consistency, which only appeared during a seven-game winning streak from Jan. 20-Feb. 1. They are 2-5-0 in their past seven games, however.
New York has scored three goals or fewer in nine straight games and in 15 of its past 17. On Thursday, two goals were enough when Ilya Sorokin stopped 38 shots to make goals by Alexander Romanov and Kyle Palmieri stand up.
“I thought we did OK,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “Sometimes you just need to find a way to win, and that’s what we did. We played well enough to win.”
The Islanders played with a more complete roster as defenseman Noah Dobson returned from missing 11 games with a lower-body injury. Defenseman Ryan Pulock also recently returned from injury for the Islanders, who play three games before next Friday’s trade deadline.
“We know the position we’re in,” New York captain Anders Lee said. “We know we’ve got to put something together here.”
Nashville has been near the bottom of the Western Conference all season despite adding Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei on the first day of free agency.
The Predators have won three of five since getting outscored 21-10 during a six-game losing streak from Jan. 25-Feb. 7. Nashville absorbed a pair of blowout losses to the New Jersey Devils and Florida Panthers earlier this week before bouncing back with a 2-1 home win over the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night.
Filip Forsberg scored 4:29 into the first period and Tommy Novak netted the tiebreaking power-play goal late in the first. Novak scored on a night in which the Predators stopped Winnipeg’s 11-game winning streak.
Nashville is allowing 29.4 shots per game but played one of its better defensive games as Juuse Saros stopped 23 shots. The Predators’ 24 shots allowed were their lowest since conceding 22 on Jan. 29.
“A gutsy effort by everybody,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “Everybody contributed, everybody brought something. So, we’re able to leave this game here tonight with a good feeling. We haven’t left too many nights with a good feeling, so hopefully we can build a little momentum off this.”
The Predators played without captain Roman Josi on their blue line due to an upper-body injury. The defenseman, who was injured when he took a hit from Florida’s Sam Bennett on Tuesday, is day-to-day and could be out again Saturday.
