Last week, all hope seemed lost. But two huge Islanders wins against the Wild and Capitals to end the year changed the narrative for a struggling team.
The Islanders started off the Tuesday matinee against Washington on fire. The team jumped out to a quick 2-0 thanks to Casey Cizikas and Brock Nelson. However, the Capitals quickly responded, as Evgeny Kuznetsov found the back of the net 14 seconds later.

And the Capitals from there scored two more goals to put the team up three to two. However, the Islanders did not go away easy and notched two more goals to go up to 4-3 against the Capitals. The Islanders held on to win 4-3, thus reclaiming second place in the Metropolitan Division and ending 2019 with a win.
A big part of the Islanders’ success over the last year and especially their win against the Capitals has been because of production from all four of their lines. Against the capitals, 10 different Islander players recorded a point. Production from all four of the Islanders’ lines is crucial to the team’s success. The Islanders do not have a ton of goal scorers on their team, in order to be successful, they need everyone to chip in.

Against the Capitals, Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov stood on his head, bailing out the Islanders more often than not. The Russian netminder stopped 36 out of 39 shots and stopped all 18 shots he faced in the third period. The Islanders seem to have returned to their old ways of worrying about their own zone first and the offensive zone second. If the Islanders can continue the winning ways they could become a real problem come this spring.

Ethan Halle

Ethan is an Economics Major at the University of Florida looking to pursue a double major in Sports Management with a minor in political science.