Elmont, N.Y. – You suspect Saturday’s Red Wings’ game might be a template of many others in these final 20 games of the regular season.
Play hard, stay close, tease a victory, but ultimately a tough loss.
The New York Islanders scored two goals in 2 minutes, 28 seconds early in the third period to take the lead for good in a 4-1 victory over the Red Wings.
Simply put, the Wings couldn’t keep the bigger, more physical, hard-driving Islanders for 60 minutes. They kept them off the scoreboard for 40. But the Islanders finally burst through.
“They scored,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said of the difference in the third period. “I don’t think it was a whole lot different from the first two periods, they were dangerous all night with sticks and tips in the hard areas and they finally got two (goals).”
The Islanders’ Zach Parise (16th, 2:11) and Anders Lee (23rd, 4:39) erased a 1-0 Wings lead, finally getting pucks past goaltender Magnus Hellberg. Kyle Palmieri added a power-play goal at 15:41 of third period, and Lee added his second goal of the afternoon at 17:22 to complete the third-period explosion.
BOX SCORE: Islanders 4, Red Wings 1
Parise put back a rebound of Sebastian Aho’s drive off an Islanders rush. Lee got his stick on a shot by Hudson Fasching in the slot, giving the Islanders the lead for good.
“Now we’re chasing the game but at 2-1 we’re still pretty good and I liked our chances to get some good looks to tie that game,” Lalonde said. “The penalty in the end (David Perron, tripping) did not allow that to happen.”
Palmieri scored his 10th goal, tipping Noah Dobson’s shot from the high slot, giving the Islanders a 3-1 lead.
“The third one on the power play, that killed the game,” said Hellberg, who stopped 32 shots. “It’s a lot of frustration right now since they changed the course of the game so late. The first two periods, we played good, everybody helping out in our own zone. We knew it would be a tight game.”
Dylan Larkin (power play) gave the Wings a 1-0 lead with his 23rd goal at 18:59 of the second period. Moritz Seider found Larkin open near the post, Larkin wheeled, and flipped a shot past goaltender Ilya Sorokin.
But the Wings didn’t muster any more offense, they only had 23 shots on Sorokin, and the lack of offense is something that could become a factor after the Wings’ lost so much offense this week at the trade deadline.
“We have to go to the hard areas,” Lalonde said. “This is a bad matchup for us. We only scored one goal in six periods here. You have to get uncomfortable and fight through. This is a team that is going to defend their net and we have to be harder on the goalie. It’s uncomfortable and we don’t have many of that type of player, but some of our players who are not that are going to have to start being that.”
The Wings (28-25-9, 65 points) fell seven points behind the Islanders (32-25-8, 72 points) in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.
The Wings were playing their first game without Tyler Bertuzzi (Boston), Filip Hronek (Vancouver), Jakub Vrana (St. Louis) and Oskar Sundqvist (Minnesota), all of whom were traded before Friday’s trade deadline.
“(Those) guys were great assets for the team but that’s the way it goes in this business,” Hellberg said. “This is the team that is going to have to do it. We have to bear down and try to figure it out how to win these types of games, for sure.”
ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tkulfan