At least for now, the Islanders stopped the bleeding.
Doing so on the same night the organization honored Brent Sutter — inducting him into the team’s Hall of Fame and onto the Ring of Honor at UBS Arena — with one of the season’s better crowds in attendance, gave a little bit extra to an otherwise forgettable 4-1 win over the Sharks on Saturday.
This was at least a much-improved effort from the disastrous first two games of the homestand, and it didn’t hurt that the Islanders had Alexander Romanov and Simon Holmstrom making returns to their lineup — both from upper-body injuries.
Those weren’t the only changes coinciding with the improvement.
For the first time since Oct. 29, Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat started a game on the same line, a change that led to Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri reuniting as well. With Maxim Tsyplakov suspended, Marc Gatcomb rejoined the team for his second-ever NHL game.
There was also Marcus Hogberg in net, continuing to look like a steady option with 18 saves after coach Patrick Roy opted for the Swede over Ilya Sorokin.
Attributing this win solely to lineup changes, though, would be an injustice.
The Islanders, who had looked so flat throughout the first two games of this homestand, played with a renewed effort and intensity.
There was an emotion to their game that has been all too rare this season.
They forechecked, they worked to keep the puck in the zone, they attacked with zeal.
And, after knocking on Alexandar Georgiev’s door for much of the first period, they knocked it right down in the second, with goals from Barzal, Brock Nelson and Noah Dobson — the first two off breakaways and the latter coming on a point shot through traffic which hit off a Sharks defenseman and in.
Barclay Goodrow’s shot from above the right circle followed Barzal’s goal, beating Hogberg clean on what’s been the only bad goal let up in four starts from the third-stringer.
But Nelson’s came just 40 seconds after that, in what has been a rare instance this season: the Islanders bailing out their goaltender, instead of asking their goaltender to bail them out.
The Islanders did not let up in the third, with Ryan Pulock adding a fourth goal just 1:03 into the period on a right-point blast that beat Georgiev clean.
Indeed, there was no collapse coming here.
The truth is, the Islanders are far enough away from the playoff cutline that there’s not much point in wondering whether one game against the 31st-ranked team in the league is going to begin a turnaround, though surely that’s the hope.
For a run to even enter the realm of rational thought, the Islanders need to close out the last four games of this homestand pretty close to perfect, and maybe get some help elsewhere.
For a pretty long time, the teams ahead of the Islanders were essentially keeping them in the race, with nobody grabbing initiative.
Now, a group of teams in the race — Columbus, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Detroit, Montreal — are all doing so at the same time, and the Islanders are left in their wake.
Whether this represents the club re-finding what worked over a three-game winning streak last week on a more permanent basis or not, an all-around effort on home ice has been rare enough this season that you can set the big picture aside and enjoy it.
