EDMONTON, Alberta — Put this one on the Vezina Trophy résumé for Ilya Sorokin.
And, as a matter of fact, put it on some teach tape for defensive zone structure, too.
The Islanders didn’t have much by way of offense Thursday night in Alberta.
But they escaped Edmonton with two points and a 1-0 win over an Oilers squad that had them outgunned all night thanks to the way they bore down in their own zone before finally hitting pay dirt.
This was a night, and maybe the first such night since Bo Horvat was injured for the second time, when you could see just how much the Islanders are missing their leading scorer.
Horvat, who went off on New Year’s Day with a lower-body injury similar but not exactly the same as what caused him to miss time in December, was originally supposed to join them for this entire trip and perhaps play by the end of it. Over halfway through, he’s still rehabbing in New York with the Islanders choosing to play it cautiously instead.
They missed him Thursday, and missed him badly.
It was a product of the Islanders’ own sturdy defense and Sorokin’s excellence in net that the game entered its final period scoreless. The Islanders had just four shots on net in the second period and, when Leon Draisaitl was called for tripping Matthew Schaefer, they had gone the first 12 minutes of the third without one.
That is how hockey goes sometimes, though. And the last-ranked power play in the league, on a six-game scoreless streak, put together a beautiful piece of passing — Mathew Barzal to Cal Ritchie in front of the net, who backhanded it behind him to Anthony Duclair — to set up Duclair to score at 13:42 of the third and put the Islanders ahead.
That, after 53 minutes straight of defense including two successful penalty kills of their own.
After defending all night, a few more minutes was not much to ask and Sorokin saved his best — a 10-bell stop going left on a Draisaitl one-timer — for last.
Offensively, this was not a night to remember.
There wasn’t a single line that held the puck in the offensive zone for a noteworthy period of time. The Islanders had no forecheck, no cycle game, not much of anything aside from defense, guile and goaltending.
Coach Patrick Roy wasted no time in switching Jonathan Drouin to the third line and Max Shabanov to the second. The line of Shabanov, Ritchie and Emil Heineman proceeded to get caved in all night while the newly constituted third line of Drouin, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Simon Holmstrom drew the matchup with Connor McDavid, and therefore wasn’t asked to do much aside from defend.
Barzal’s line produced chances off the rush, as did the fourth line. Neither, though, put any kind of steady pressure on Edmonton.
The saving grace of the Islanders’ play was on their blue line. Schaefer and Ryan Pulock more than held their own getting the lion’s share of minutes against McDavid. Tony DeAngelo had one of his better nights in the defensive zone and so did Adam Boqvist. Adam Pelech and Scott Mayfield were their usual sturdy selves.
And behind them, Sorokin tracked every puck, stayed in command of his crease and looked entirely nonplussed under fire. Like so many other games this season, the Islanders do not have a chance in this one without their goaltender.
And like so many other games this season, that did not matter one iota at the final horn.
