Bo Horvat’s hat trick leads Islanders in first win of season

The Islanders won’t be leaving home with a winless record hanging over their heads. 

Four games into the season, they finally got off the schneid on Thursday by beating the Oilers 4-2 on the back of Bo Horvat’s hat trick, becoming the last team in the NHL to gain points this season. It is never a good thing, and it is usually inaccurate, when a mid-October win can be described as needed, but this came close to qualifying. 

While excitement over Matthew Schaefer overshadowed a good bit of the Islanders’ struggles as a team over the first three games, it could only go so far before things turned in the other direction. Coach Patrick Roy spoke Thursday morning about wanting to get the team’s first win under general manager Mathieu Darche, and the Islanders had no interest in flying to Ottawa on Friday with that milestone still hanging over their heads. 

Particularly without the puck, the Islanders looked far better on Thursday. They forechecked heavily, the Alexander Romanov-Tony DeAngelo pair had by far its best game of the young season and Ryan Pulock was at his best, too. Mathew Barzal and Horvat both scored their first goals of the season. David Rittich, playing his first game in net, had a strong night facing a high-powered Oilers team. The insertion of Kyle MacLean onto the fourth line for Maxim Tsyplakov worked as intended. 

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This was the first time Schaefer did not look like the team’s best defensemen — though he did extend his points streak to four games with a secondary assist, his minutes were down notably from the 26-plus he played in each of the last two games — and with all due respect toward the 18-year-old, that is probably a good thing for the Islanders’ chances of winning. 

Even with all that, though, the game appeared to be slipping out of the Islanders’ grasp late in the second as they trailed 2-1 and the Oilers bore down on the power play. The vibe in UBS Arena changed in an instant, though, as Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s feed off the wall sprung Horvat for a shorthanded break which tied the game at two. 

The Islanders had struggled on their own power play all night, making a hash of their first two chances and failing to score on their third. Their fourth, which came when Schaefer drew a high stick on Trent Frederic, finally produced a breakthrough. 

Right from the faceoff, Pageau got it to Horvat in the slot for a one-timer that ended up in the back of Skinner’s net and a 3-2 lead with 4:46 to go. 

That made for a nervy last few minutes with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the ice together, but Rittich stood tall to hang onto the lead before Horvat completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal. 

With the Islanders entering the night without having held a lead at home yet this season, Barzal ended that ignominy 16:23 into the first period, stripping the puck from Evan Bouchard and scoring on the ensuing breakaway. 

The 1-0 score, however, lasted just 1:17 before Draisaitl converted on a power-play feed from McDavid. 

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins gave the Oilers the lead 8:53 into the second with a wrist shot that beat Rittich from the left circle, and Edmonton appeared to be gaining steam throughout the second. 

The Islanders, facing the prospect of an 0-4-0 start that would have qualified for the worst losing streak to start a season in franchise history, did not wilt. 

They avoided that calamity. 

Now they must put their first three games fully behind them, and jump properly into the fray.