Another comeback attempt for the New York Islanders fell short on Thursday night, this time to the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.
William Carrier buried a rebound with 5:08 left in regulation to power the Hurricanes to a 5-3 win over the Islanders at UBS Arena. Jalen Chatfield’s empty-netter with 50.3 seconds remaining ended any hope of another late Islanders rally.
“I thought we did a lot of good things tonight,” Islanders captain Bo Horvat said. “It was just a couple of lapses on our part that cost us.”
Goaltender Semyon Varlamov was a mixed bag. He continued a worrying trend of giving up goals in bunches; Logan Stankoven and Jesperi Kotkaniemi both scored to give Carolina a 2-0 lead not even four minutes into the game. Varlamov gave up two goals on the first five shots the Los Angeles Kings threw at him on Oct. 22, and he let in two goals on four shots in the second period against the Nashville Predators on Oct. 27.
But he buckled down in a big way afterward, not only stopping 34 Carolina shots but making some ten-bell saves, eliciting chants of “Varly” from the UBS Arena crowd.
The second period has been where the Islanders have kept themselves in games this season; they are outscoring opponents 19-14 in the middle stanza this year and outscored Carolina 3-1 on Thursday. Chaffee’s goal, alongside a wrap-around tally from Brayden Schenn and Victor Eklund’s one-timed rocket erased deficits of 2-0 and 3-2.
Eklund, Schenn and Chaffee each added an assist as well; Chaffee had his best game as a member of the Blue and Orange, scoring a deflection goal on a long-range shot from Matthew Schaefer and creating several other scoring chances. Seven games into his Isles career, Chaffee has started to mesh well with his linemates Casey Cizikas and Kyle MacLean.
“We’ve continued to grow as a line, we’ve just continued to get better.” Chaffee said, “We’ve been talking a lot as a line and trying to figure out where we want each other.”
New York controlled some of the less appreciated aspects of the game, nearly doubling up the Hurricanes on faceoff wins, 40 compared to 21. In addition, they imposed their will on the defending champs with 26 hits.
However, for all the things New York did well, the power play remained a black eye. The Isles entered Thursday with the 29th-ranked power play in the league with just a 15.9% conversion rate and went 0-for-4 in the loss. Not only failing to beat Brandon Bussi, but giving the Hurricanes multiple shorthanded opportunities.
“Right now we’re making one or two good plays, and then we really need that play to execute and find the open man,” Schenn said. “There’s a bunch of stuff out there that we need to clean up; it just comes down to quicker puck movement with execution.”
The Isles are now winless in regulation in their last six games, and lost a chance to keep pace with the New York Rangers, who knocked off the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2.
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