Ilya Sorokin made 23 saves and Marc Gatcomb scored his first NHL goal as the surging New York Islanders skated to a 3-0 road victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday.
Simon Holmstrom and Kyle Palmieri also scored for New York, which has won six straight games. The Islanders have allowed a total of seven goals during their hot stretch, highlighted by Thursday’s shutout.
Ivan Fedotov made 25 saves for Philadelphia, which has lost four of its last five games.
In the third meeting between the teams over the last two weeks, this matchup was lopsided in favor of the Islanders. The Flyers won the first meeting 5-3 on Jan. 16 before absorbing a 3-1 defeat in the rematch– also in New York – eight days later.
This encounter resulted in Sorokin’s third shutout of the season and the 21st of his career.
Flyers rookie Matvei Michkov scored a first-period goal that was challenged and disallowed for goaltender interference. Separately, Michkov was benched for the game’s second half after a heated conversation with coach John Tortorella following the first Islanders goal.
Philadelphia center Morgan Frost also did not play in the third period for undisclosed reasons.
Holmstrom opened the scoring near the midpoint of the second period. He gathered a loose puck and skated to the high slot, unleashing a wrist shot that went off the iron and past Fedotov.
New York doubled the score about seven minutes later, as Philadelphia got caught in a bad line change, essentially allowing a 2-on-0 rush against Fedotov. Maxim Tsyplakov quickly advanced the puck to Kyle MacLean, whose pass across to Gatcomb set up the rookie for a nifty chip over the sliding netminder.
With about 10 minutes left in the contest, Palmieri scored his first goal in 15 games with the teams skating 4-on-4. He took a drop pass from Casey Cizikas along the left side, made a move around Philadelphia’s Jamie Drysdale and found the top corner of the net for the game’s final tally.
–Field Level Media
