The New York Islanders finally held on to a third-period lead on Saturday.
They won’t have to wait long to try to accomplish an even more rare feat.
The Islanders will look to win consecutive games for just the second time this season on Sunday when they visit the Ottawa Senators in a battle of Eastern Conference rivals.
Both teams will be completing back-to-back sets after winning at home Saturday, when the Islanders rode a four-goal second period to a 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes and the Senators beat the Nashville Predators 3-1.
The win was just the fourth in the past 14 games (4-5-5) for the Islanders, who responded to a 5-2 loss on Thursday to the Seattle Kraken with a complete effort against the Hurricanes. Carolina eliminated New York in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs each of the past two seasons.
Bo Horvat’s first goal since Nov. 7 and sixth of the season capped the four-goal second period for the Islanders. New York was outshot 19-2 in the third but blanked Carolina until Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s extra-attacker goal in the final minute.
New York blew a third-period lead in six of its past 10 losses and seven times in 18 defeats overall this season.
“We had to bounce back,” Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock said. “(Thursday night) was probably our worst game of the year. That’s a good team (Carolina). That’s a good win for us.”
The Islanders haven’t won two straight since Nov. 5-7, when they beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 in a shootout before defeating the Senators 4-2. Despite the inconsistency, New York is two points out of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
“We’ve got to play the same way,” Pulock said. “This is a win you can build off.”
Ottawa has strung together some building-block wins following a five-game losing streak (0-4-1) from Nov. 14-23. The Senators have won four of their past six (4-1-1), a span in which they’ve gone 3-1 in one-goal games. They were 3-4 in one-goal games over the first 20 games of the season.
“The record speaks for itself a little bit,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “We’ve played some good hockey as of late. We’re still grinding, We’re finding our game again.”
The Senators never trailed Saturday, when defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker snapped a scoreless tie 5:07 into the second and goalie Linus Ullmark carried a shutout deep into the third before finishing with 37 saves.
The Senators have won back-to-back games twice within the past six contests after posting a pair of two-game winning streaks through Nov. 23.
“I think we feel that things are kind of starting to come together,” Bernard-Docker said after scoring his first goal since Jan. 9. “And we’re starting to build on games which, early in the season, wasn’t really happening. It kind of felt like we’d win one, lose one, win one, lose one. So it’s nice to have a little momentum.”
