The morning’s undertones told you that the Islanders lineup could look different awfully soon. The evening’s overtones told you that might be a good and necessary thing.
It looked for much of this game like the Islanders were on a glide path to getting away with two points too, even with nothing like their best performance. Given the not-quite-official fight between Matthew Schaefer and Luke Hughes that saw Schaefer hand a beating to the youngest member of hockey’s first family, it would have been about as happy a win as the Islanders could have asked for before taking off for California on Sunday, had they hung on to a 4-2 lead.
Instead, their performance caught up with them. The Islanders frittered away a two-goal lead in the last 20 minutes to make it a winless three-game homestand, handing the Devils a 5-4 win on Jack Hughes’ overtime goal that ended a night rife with subplots. Mathew Barzal and Co. can’t make it back soon enough.
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