The New York Islanders had nearly three full days to ponder what could have been after squandering a trio of one-goal leads against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.
The Minnesota Wild won’t have to wait nearly as long to get back on to the ice after a similar experience on Thursday.
The Islanders and Wild will look to get back in the win column Friday night when New York opposes Minnesota in the teams’ first meeting of the season at Elmont, N.Y.
The Islanders have been off since Tuesday when they fell to the visiting Bruins 4-3 in a shootout. The Wild will be completing a road back-to-back set after frittering away two one-goal leads in a 4-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C.
The shootout defeat ended a two-game winning streak for the Islanders, who outshot the Bruins 33-27 despite opening the game without a shot over the first 14-plus minutes. New York led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 before Marat Khusnutdinov forced overtime with 4:54 left.
Khusnutdinov then scored the only goal in the shootout.
“We’re going to have nights where you play good hockey games and you come up short,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “Tonight was one of those games.”
The Islanders will be looking to break an early-season trend on Friday, when they complete a three-game homestand. New York’s first 12 games included four distinct streaks — a three-game skid to open the schedule, a four-game winning streak, a three-game run in which the team went 0-2-1 and now a 2-0-1 sequence.
New York continues to receive contributions from its prized 18-year-old rookie, defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft recorded an assist on Tuesday after scoring two goals in the previous game. He has five goals and six assists through 13 games.
Like the Islanders, the Wild had a two-game winning streak end in their most recent contest. However, the first month of the season has included more downs than ups for Minnesota, which is one of six NHL teams — all in the Western Conference — with a sub-.500 point percentage.
The loss was the ninth in 12 games (3-6-3) for the Wild since they won two of their first three. Minnesota’s 13 points overall are tied for the third fewest in the NHL.
Minnesota led 1-0 and 2-1 at Carolina before falling behind 3-2 at the end of the first period. Wild forward Matt Boldy scored the tying goal 37 seconds into the middle period, but the Hurricanes’ Nikolaj Ehlers snapped the tie with the game-winner just nine seconds later.
Minnesota never got the equalizer despite outshooting the Hurricanes 14-6 in the third period.
“Played good, didn’t get the result we wanted,” said Boldy, who had two goals. “Steps in the right direction for sure. Won two in a row and I thought our game was still going in the right direction. We’ll take the positives and learn from the negatives.”
