Just a couple of nights after the Islanders put in a defensive effort to make Ilya Sorokin’s brilliance obsolete, they asked their goaltender to hold up the sky.
And Sorokin, despite stopping every shot he saw at five-on-five, including a series of dazzling saves, could not play the role of Atlas.
The Islanders, in turn, suffered their first loss of the season, 5-4, to the Devils on Friday night on Jack Hughes’ overtime winner.
The game was a penalty-stricken affair in which the Islanders stole a point, but could not steal a victory.
After 40 minutes of hockey delivered a massively entertaining 3-3 draw, the sixth Islanders penalty of the night delivered the Devils’ fourth power-play goal, with Hughes finishing Ondrej Palat’s feed to the crease 4:30 into the third.
That looked like it would be all she wrote after the Islanders wasted a late power play of their own with just one shot on net.
But with 1:11 to go in regulation and Sorokin out of his net, Bo Horvat buried a rebound to tie the score at 4-4 and breathe life into the evening.
Come overtime, however, the momentum was lost, as Hughes buried a wrister to seal the Devils’ win with 2:41 to go in the extra period.
Against a team that possesses perhaps the greatest speed in the NHL, the Islanders just couldn’t keep up.
The Devils were so fast as to make entering the offensive zone look like a downhill run.
In what limited acquisitions he’s made recently, general manager Lou Lamoriello has tried to make the Islanders faster — it’s no coincidence that the first words out of everyone’s mouth regarding Pierre Engvall and Julien Gauthier (who did not play) was “speed” — but here was proof positive the home club has a ways to go.
Too often, that resulted in mindless penalties — two each for Casey Cizikas and Adam Pelech.
In a game in which the Islanders had excellent goaltending and outscored their opposition easily at five-on-five, they did not have enough.
For a moment early in the second period, it looked as though the Devils had broken Sorokin after the goaltender turned in a magnificent first.
Tyler Toffoli put New Jersey ahead 2-1 just 21 seconds into the second, taking advantage of a power play that carried over from the end of the first.
Then, after Brock Nelson had tied the score with his second goal of the night, Luke Hughes put a puck through traffic on a Devils power play at 2:36.
But there was another twist in a period that ultimately delivered four goals in its first 6:10.
Noah Dobson faked a shot and instead fed the puck to Horvat, who delivered a sharp-angle goal to tie the score back up at 3-3.
For good measure, Sorokin added a jaw-dropping pad save on Nate Bastian to remind everyone of his superiority before the period was out.
That was his third such moment of the evening.
The first was an early candidate for save of the year at 15:27 when he stopped Hughes from point-blank range on his backhand with a glove save.
That promoted Hughes to bang his stick against the glass in frustration.
Another superb save came barely a minute later when Sorokin slid left to get a pad on Jesper Bratt’s one-timer.
Those saves reflected the early flow of the game, in which the goalie was keeping the Islanders in it all by himself.
Nelson’s wrist shot 12:35 in gave the home team an early lead, but regular programming quickly resumed in the form of a Devils onslaught.
Dougie Hamilton broke Sorokin at the 19-minute mark, getting a one-timer through from the high slot on the second of three first-period Devils power plays.
In the first period alone, Sorokin faced 13 shots — nearly as many as the Coyotes had in 60 minutes Tuesday.
The goalie can solve a lot of problems.
But not that one.
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