Islanders win fifth straight, send Sabres to seventh consecutive loss

UNIONDALE, N.Y. --Brock Nelson scored twice, and the New York Islanders won their fifth straight game, 5-2 against the Buffalo Sabres at Nassau Coliseum on Sunday.

Anders Lee, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck scored, and Ilya Sorokin made 24 saves to give the Islanders (15-6-4) an eight-game point streak (7-0-1). They are the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss at home (10-0-2).
"Coming into our home building, this is our ice, this is our home," Cizikas said. "We want to put our best games forward and make it hard on the other teams, knowing that when they come here, it's going to be a dogfight. We've done that so far at the start of the season."
New York completed a three-game sweep of Buffalo, winning each game 5-2.
"You see them three times in a row, all in our building, it's a miniseries," Lee said. "That third game's tough, especially on a back-to-back. We knew that coming in and I think we just did a really good job of sticking to our game."

Jeff Skinner scored his first goal of the season, and Colin Miller scored for the Sabres (6-14-3), who have lost seven in a row (0-6-1). Jonas Johansson made 25 saves.
"It's not a fun time," Buffalo coach Ralph Krueger said. "These aren't easy times, but truly they are times where you could grow and learn if you take the right lessons out of it. We need to find lessons right now and really evaluate everything that's within our control as coaches and work together with the players to pull ourselves together. The only way we're going to get out of this is with a group effort."
Lee gave the Islanders a 1-0 lead when he redirected a feed from Jordan Eberle at 5:13 of the second period, six seconds after a holding penalty against Sabres center Cody Eakin expired.

Nelson scored for a second straight game 1:02 later with a wrist shot from between the circles off a pass from Oliver Wahlstrom to make it 2-0 at 6:15.
"We did some good things before with maybe less results, just a couple of good looks," Nelson said. "It's nice to get a few that go in and capitalize 5-on-5."
Cizikas one-timed a pass from Jean-Gabriel Pageau at 16:56 of the second to give New York a 3-0 lead. The Islanders' fourth line of Cizikas, Clutterbuck and Matt Martin combined to score 11 points (five goals, six assists) during the three-game sweep.
"It's always nice to chip in offensively, especially with our group," Cizikas said. "We're focused on doing things right in our own end and getting the puck in and getting in on the forecheck and to get rewarded, it's big for us and big for the club."
Skinner scored on a wraparound at 5:41 of the third to cut it to 3-1. Miller made it 3-2 with a wrist shot from the right circle at 9:35 shortly after Johansson made a pad save on Pageau's point-blank chance.
"It's nice," Skinner said. "I sort of take myself as someone that should be able to contribute offensively and obviously that's been a bit of a struggle personally and as a team. Personally, [I] hope we can build on this and go from there."

Clutterbuck eluded Sabres defenseman Brandon Davidson and roofed a backhand at 12:57 to make it 4-2. Nelson scored an empty-net goal at 17:48 for the 5-2 final.
"It was a big goal," Clutterbuck said. "I just saw [Martin] flip a puck out; he made a really good play under pressure. The puck took a bounce and fortunately I was able to change directions quickly enough to grab it. I just tried to shield myself from the defenseman. I kind of knew I wanted to pull it to my backhand and elevate it. It worked out."
NOTES:New York is 6-0-0 against Buffalo this season and has won nine in a row dating to March 30, 2019. … Lee leads the Islanders with 12 goals this season, six have been scored against the Sabres. … Clutterbuck has scored in back-to-back games. … Pageau scored his 200th NHL point with an assist on Cizikas' goal and Eberle got his 300th NHL assist. … Skinner scored his first goal since Feb. 29, 2020 (24 games). ... Buffalo assigned defenseman Henri Jokiharju to the taxi squad and recalled Davidson and forward Casey Mittelstadt. Jokiharju, who played all 69 games for the Sabres last season, was a healthy scratch Saturday.