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SALT LAKE CITY — Finally, a comeback win.
Finally, a real winning streak.
Finally, some real hope that the Islanders can make a run at this thing.
The standings still paint a problematic picture, but the feeling around the Islanders has done a 180 after the team swept through a three-game road trip, beating Utah Hockey Club 2-1 on Saturday night at Delta Center on Mathew Barzal’s game-winning goal with 1:25 to go in regulation.
After a first half of the season in which the Islanders shrunk from resilience at nearly every opportunity, here it was in full bore.
The Isles remain five points back of the last wild-card spot after Saturday’s games, so there still is plenty of work to do for them to genuinely turn around their season.
But for the first time, there’s real reason to believe.
“We know what time of year it is,” Barzal said after a starring performance that culminated in slamming home the game-winner when the puck leaked out to him following a scramble at the crease. “It’s crunch-time, really. Kind of makes or breaks a team. Looks like we’re trending upward.”
It is just three games, but that’s more than the Islanders have strung together all season.
And after Saturday started with the revelation that Ilya Sorokin was unavailable due to illness and Alexander Romanov was out with an upper-body injury, coming home with a full bounty of points in hand feels like that much bigger of a statement.
“It means a lot in a way that, when you look at the schedule [with] Boston, Vegas and then closing in Utah, we knew it’d be a tough task,” coach Patrick Roy said. “And very proud of our guys.”
Marcus Hogberg made his second start of the season in place of Sorokin and stopped 21 shots — steady enough that the Islanders could leave with two points.
The difference between now and that Dec. 28 match in Pittsburgh was the defense in front of the Swede, which is playing more structured and mistake-free hockey than it has all season.
Even so, the Islanders went into the last 20 minutes on their heels, with Nick Schmaltz’s tip-in of Michael Kesselring’s point shot 1:13 into the second counting for the difference.
That was erased 3:36 into the third as the top line of Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and Barzal — which had dominated all night long — finally broke through, with Lee feeding Nelson to tie the game at one.
After the Islanders crucially killed off Lee’s penalty for goaltender interference at 13:32 of the third, the top line struck again with 1:25 to go in regulation as Barzal fired home the winner.
“He got a great assist on the first one, he scored that one, he was around the net,” Roy said. “He cut in front of the net so these are things that we need from him and he’s a leader on this team. Tonight he came through.”
With his parents, Mike and Nadia, in attendance, it was some kind of salvation for Barzal, who’s been struggling to feel like himself since returning from an upper-body injury last month.
“I was really frustrated after the first and second,” Barzal said. “I thought we deserved to have two, our line, for sure. I missed two two-on-ones [and] kinda let it affect me. Just reset going into the third and played a great third.”
It was salvation for the Islanders, too — just the second time all season they’ve come back to win a game in which they trailed in the third period.
And on a night where they would have dropped seven points back of a wild-card spot with a loss, it felt essential for more reasons than mere vibes.
The vibes, however, sure don’t hurt.
“That’s what we want,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. “And we want to keep building on [it]. We’ve played a lot of good hockey and didn’t get the results we want. Feels like it’s starting to turn around and go our way right now.”
For months, the Islanders have been unable to string together victories, taking two steps backward for every step forward. Maybe, just maybe, they are putting that version of themselves behind them.
It’s not as if the Islanders have solved every issue — going 0 for 3 on the power play made it 24 straight scoreless opportunities at five-on-four dating back over a month, for starters.
But certainly, they think they’ve found some mojo, with a coherent identity clicking into place and a rubber chicken mascot that might just be a talisman.
There is a season-long seven-game homestand coming up once the Islanders get home from Utah.
All of a sudden, the Islanders look well-positioned to take advantage.
