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The Islanders opened their four-game Western Conference road trip last night, falling 4-1 to the Seattle Kraken.
It probably wasn’t the start the Islanders envisioned, with the Kraken completely taking the play to them for the first half of the opening frame. Then midway through the period following a dump-in right at Sorokin, Seattle managed to get to the loose puck, and Ryan Donato put it out front to Adam Larsson, who scored from a good spot. New York ended up with a power play afterwards, but the best chance came from Seattle on a shorthanded odd-man rush, with Sorokin having to make a good save on Yanni Gourde. Despite the Islanders being badly outplayed in the opening frame though, with under three minutes to go, Mathew Barzal managed to just slide a puck through Martin Jones in-close to tie the game before the end of the period.
New York ended up starting the second period on a man advantage after Seattle took a late first period penalty, with a chance to try to build some momentum and take a lead. Once again though, they gave up a great chance to the Kraken, with Sorokin having to stop a shorthanded breakaway. The Islanders ended up taking a penalty of their own after that and on the ensuing power play, Eeli Tolvanen wired a one-timer past Sorokin for his first goal with his new team, giving the Kraken the lead. New York just really couldn’t get much going at all and then on another Kraken power play, both Jaden Schwartz and Oliver Bjorkstrand were left all alone in close, but Sorokin came up with some absurd saves to keep the deficit at one. Despite Sorokin doing all he could to keep the Islanders in it though, Oliver Bjorkstrand managed to capitalize on a rebound in front later on, making it a 3-1 game through 40 minutes.
The third period didn’t go a whole lot better. New York did have a couple chances from the likes of Brock Nelson and Alexander Romanov, but there wasn’t a ton of sustained pressure. After a pretty low-event frame, the Islanders pulled the goalie to try and press, but Brandon Tanev buried an empty netter, securing a 4-1 win.
After a stretch of three really good games, this was just such a poor outing. The Islanders looked completely flat and really didn’t build any sort of momentum throughout the game. They were also pretty consistently giving up high-danger chances and despite the score being close, they never really seemed to be in the game.
If it weren’t for Ilya Sorokin, the score would’ve been worse. The Islanders were outshot 35-19, but even that margin may not represent the kinds of saves Sorokin was forced to make.
New York's power play was completely ineffective as well. While they only had two opportunities, the Islanders ended up allowing better shorthanded chances than they could manage themselves on their own power plays. This came against the 31st ranked penalty kill too.
The Islanders will look to get back on track tomorrow night, when they continue the road trip against the Vancouver Canucks.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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