LAS VEGAS — Two in a row ain’t much.
But for the Islanders, you best believe it means a whole lot.
On the same day general manager Lou Lamoriello expressed his belief that the Islanders can turn their season around, the team responded by beating the top team in the NHL, handing the Golden Knights just their fifth defeat at home of the season by a 4-0 margin Thursday.
As importance goes, the narrative and symbolic implications of this one felt much larger than the practical ones.
Yes, the Islanders kept pace with the chasing pack in the Eastern Conference, staying five points back of a wild-card spot as the Blue Jackets and Penguins both won as well.
But the Islanders aren’t in much of a position to scoreboard watch if they can’t figure themselves out first.
That requires playing consistently, proving they can hang with anyone in the league and putting together the sort of winning streak that can surge them into a playoff spot.
Leaving Vegas with two points in hand — just the third time all season they’ve won back-to-back games — would be a major step in that direction, if the Isles follow it by closing out this three-game road trip with a win in Utah on Saturday.
This was a classic sort of road victory.
The Islanders mucked up the game, played low-event, physical hockey and held down a highly powered Golden Knights attack.
Compared to the shot-happy win over the Bruins a few nights prior, it was a 180 in terms of entertainment value.
The Islanders might have grinded it out, but that was belied by the blowout final score, which implied dominance.
Of course, nobody was complaining.
A win is a win, and a road win over the best team in the NHL is a damn good win, no matter the details.
The Islanders had just 12 shots through the first 40 minutes, but made the most of their chances to enter the third with a 3-0 lead.
A slow-starting first period featured the Islanders temporarily going down 1-0 before Tomas Hertl’s power-play goal was overturned following Patrick Roy’s challenge for offside.
The subsequently successful penalty kill sparked some life into a group which had just two shots on goal in the game’s first 15:07, and Anders Lee capitalized on a Vegas turnover in its own zone and put the Isles up 1-0 at the 17:04 mark.
The next two goals came on a pair of second-period chances when Knights goaltender Adin Hill had little chance, as Mat Barzal fed Brock Nelson off the rush to break a 17-game goal-less streak for the latter, followed shortly by Kyle Palmieri finding Bo Horvat for a one-timer from the slot.
Where other scoring outbursts have been followed quickly by a goal against this season, the Islanders held onto their margin over the back half of the second period, helped particularly by Ilya Sorokin’s save on a darting Jack Eichel at the 15:26 mark — the save of the night in Sorokin’s second shutout of the year.
The lead held, and did so without much incident, as Casey Cizikas added an empty-netter late in the third.
As far as the big picture goes, Lamoriello’s insistence that the Islanders can still turn it around still looks more based on hope than anything else.
But if he ends up being right, what happened Thursday might just be a landmark in the Islanders’ season.
