DALLAS–
“We’re getting a lot of opportunities and a lot of scoring chances, including myself,” Horvat said. “It’s about time one went in there with all the chances we had tonight. I think we’re doing a lot of good things. It’s just a matter of getting the wins behind it, and tonight definitely felt good.”
XXXX
“It was a little different,” Nelson said. “I tried not to think too much. You find yourself in some different spots and a little bit different look, but I just tried to read off Bo and Barzal. We had a couple couple of transition looks. Definitely would have liked to have a couple more pucks in the O-zone to sustain and generate some offense, but it felt alright on the wing.”
XXXX
“It’s only the first game, but I thought they brought a lot of speed,” Roy said. “The more and more they play together, the more they’re going to feel each other. I thought every line brought something.”
Roy especially liked the play of Pierre Engvall.
The forward has struggled this year to accomplish the little things on the ice. Although he
Engvall drove his way through contact all the way to the Dallas net front, challenging Wedgewood with a pair of shots from in tight. But even after Engvall’s effort, it was Kyle MacLean who got all the glory by cleaning up the loose puck for his second goal of the season, making it 2-1 Islanders
“That’s going to happen,” Pulock said. “Like we’ve talked about before, if you give one up that next shift is the most important shift. I thought tonight after giving up goals, we did a pretty good job of not letting it be a downer moment and getting back to work and just staying the course.”
Ryan Pulock broke a scoreless tie in the first period and an Islanders five-on-five scoring drought of 135:59 as he collected a feed from Simon Holmstrom in the high slot and deposited it into the back of the net with a wrist shot over the glove of Scott Wedgewood.
“It was big,” Pulock said. “We’ve struggled a little bit to score the last few until late the other night, but it’s good to get on the board early and get some momentum going that way. It capped off a pretty good first period for us overall.”
After the Islanders failed to convert on a pair of power plays to open the second period, including one at five-on-three, the Stars made the most of there’s to tie the game. Thomas Harley’s shot took a wide rebound off the left pad of Ilya Sorokin and onto the waiting stick of Matt Duchene, who easily hit the wide-open net for his 23rd goal of the year.
Sorokin save on Hintz breakaway
“We were applying things instead of thinking,” Roy said. “I was very happy with the way we played today. I think we could certainly build around that and bring this game to the next game in Detroit.”
