Wild 6 (EN), Islanders 3: Out of bounces, out of gas

A strong first half disappears in a hail of North Star-colored volleys.

Finishing out a border-crossing back-to-back against two of the West’s best teams, the Islanders appeared to run out of gas as things bounced against them Saturday night in Minnesota.

The Islanders had a good first 30 minutes, with goals from two of their Minnesotans and a great pass from their newest third to give them a 3-1 lead, when Scott Perunovich made a deke-out-of-a-phone-booth move after catching the puck at the blueline, before a no-look backhand pass to Anders Lee. But some tough luck and some sagging had them trailing 4-3 by the second intermission.

In the third, their legs appeared to leave them, especially after the Wild made it 5-3 when Tony DeAngelo cleared the puck into his own net. An empty netter sealed the final at 6-3.

[NHL Gamecenter | Game Summary | Event Summary | Natural Stat Trick]

For posterity, here’s Perunovich’s moment (which actually followed another set of elusive moves at the blueline about 15 seconds prior):

In retrospect, the pivotal and unfortunate moment came when the Wild got one back to make it 3-2 when Frederick Gaudreau scored on the power play following a probable offside entry. The Islanders decided not to challenge — it was one of those plays where the attacker bobbled the puck as his legs entered the zone before the puck — which was probably the right call because you never know in this league. (And also, that’s one of those “why are we here?” scenarios if we have to endure minutes of subjective video review for plays like that.)

But the goal itself was a little absurd — a shot going well wide hit off DeAngelo in front of the net, changing direction and flipping over Ilya Sorokin and into the net. It would prove not to even be DeAngelo’s toughest moment of the night, but the combo of bad bounce and no review was a portent of the doom to come.

Sure enough, the Wild tied it four minutes later with 2:01 left in the period, then really knifed the Isles with a go-ahead deflection 51 seconds later.

The Isles had one power play in the third that injected a little life back into their legs, again featuring good puck movement by the newcomers, but they couldn’t cash in. The Isles pulled Sorokin for a sixth attacker with over three minutes to go, but a Marcus Foligno backhand from long distance into the empty net finished the game.

Up Next and Now What?

So the Isles got off to quite the tear in 2025 to climb back into the wild card picture. They finished a very tough stretch of the schedule — many (myself included) forecast them to be left for dead by the time they hit this tough back-to-back. Instead, they arrived in Winnipeg in promising position but come out of this swing with two regulation losses, trailing by four points and four teams for the second wild card spot.

Amid an injury crisis that should’ve finished the team off, the trio of new mobile defensemen have given them a new look; and Sorokin had been on fire before these last two games, where he returned to being just really good.

After the 4 Nations tournament, they’ll have six games before the trade deadline. Lou Lamoriello is always going to try to make his team competitive, so you figure if they’re in shouting distance he’s going to try to add rather than sell off.

But it would be a desperate run, yet again, for them to even get to the wild card among a pool of similarly middling teams, which would only set them up, yet again, to face one of a quartet of true contenders in the East. Whichever way Lou goes, we probably won’t know until at the deadline because they’re too close for him to bail now.