Worldwide Sports News

Up until a little over 16 minutes into the third, this recap had a very different vibe. The Islanders did only register 14 shots on goal, apparently tying their lowest ever against the New Jersey Devils, last done in 2004. Ilya Sorokin needed to put in a Vezina-level (and frankly, Hart-level) performance to keep the Islanders in the game. The fourth line was really the only consistent line tonight, which is never great. And Jonathan Drouin made a terrible turnover that created a clean breakaway that only luckily wasn’t in the back of our net, yet for some reason didn’t get stapled to the bench like Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair.

But then, Bo Horvat.

For the second game in a row, Horvat came up clutch, picking up the game-winning goal out of nowhere. And Mat Barzal will be taking a four game goal streak into the Olympic break, putting him just six goals away from tying his career high of 23 in a season.

The Islanders sit in second place in the Metropolitan Division and they’ll stay there at least until the season resumes on February 26th, after the Olympic break.

[NHL Gamecenter | Game Summary | Event Summary | Natural Stat Trick]

Early on, Emil Heineman had a great chance, putting the puck behind Jake Allen, but across the crease rather than in the net.

Timo Meier took a high sticking penalty, but the Devils killed an inept Islanders power play.

Dawson Mercer had a breakaway after a bad Jonathan Drouin turnover, and his backhand shot went off the post.

The fourth line played well all night and got rewarded when Casey Cizikas got the Islanders on the board 6:30 into the second period, with both Kyle MacLean and Marc Gatcomb picking up the assists.

But then, MacLean took a high sticking penalty, which the Islanders killed largely thanks to Ilya Sorokin. Sorokin was incredible this period, although he got a little bit of help when Adam Pelech made a huge block with his right skate to save a sure goal. Following that, Sorokin made a big save on Dougie Hamilton to keep the Isles’ one goal lead.

Evgenii Dadanov couldn’t get a chance across the goal line for the Devils, but the Islanders got caught in a change after clearing the puck, and Nico Hischier tied the game.

With just a few seconds left in the second, Anders Lee got hit by a Simon Holmstrom shot, and Lee skated off the ice slowly and had to be helped by the training staff down the tunnel at the end of the period. He did return at the start of the third, though.

Sorokin made a save on Connor Brown after a bad pass from Carson Soucy, MacLean had a shot saved by Allen, and Tony DeAngelo had a solid shift where he made a great pass to Heineman in the slot who hit the glass with his shot, and a great pass to Gatcomb who had his shot saved by Allen.

The Islanders had some solid looks, with Ondrej Palat having a shot saved against his former team, and Lee setting up Holmstrom only to have that chance saved by Allen, too.

But then, our hero, the Olympian, the rally bird man himself, Bo Horvat, scored with 3:27 left off the faceoff, picking up the puck behind Hischier and driving to the net to make it 2-1. That goal was Horvat’s 600th NHL point and 24th goal of the season.

The Devils pulled Allen a minute later, and Sorokin had to make a big save as the Islanders essentially defended 6 on 4 when Cizikas broke his stick. But Mat Barzal would extend his goal streak to 4 games, shooting the puck into the empty net as the Isles picked up a massive win heading into the Olympic break.

Up Next

Next, it’ll be a while before we see more Islanders hockey, when the season resumes for the Isles in Montreal on February 26th. Hopefully everyone will be back well-rested and healthy, especially the latter for our Olympians!

The Islanders haven’t looked like the best versions of themselves in a while, and they didn’t break that streak Thursday.

What they did do was drag themselves over the line and into the NHL’s Olympic pause, as Bo Horvat gave his team a late winner and a 3-1 victory over the Devils at the Prudential Center in his last game before flying to Italy to represent Team Canada.

The break, to put it mildly, is badly needed, with the Islanders feeling the effects of a condensed schedule over the last month through which they barely managed to tread water.

“It wasn’t pretty at times, for sure. We know that. We weren’t as good as we can be,” Ryan Pulock told The Post. “But I think the important part when you know that is just about finding a way. You have to be a good team to find ways when maybe you’re tired, maybe whatever it is, you dig deep. And I feel like this team has done that a lot throughout the year.”

There were points Thursday when it looked like they would finally succumb.

The Islanders took on pressure, especially during the second period.

They struggled to hit the net, putting just 14 of 45 attempts on goal.

They ceded chances off the rush and managed the puck poorly against a Devils side without Jack Hughes and with far more reason to have their minds on the beach than the Islanders.

Thanks to Ilya Sorokin and Adam Pelech, whose kick-save block on Lenni Hameenaho’s one-timer at 11:07 of the second stopped a no-doubt goal, the Islanders still went into the third tied at one, with every chance at redeeming themselves.

That was when they picked their game up and started to haul their way back into it.

Ondrej Palat, Marc Gatcomb and Simon Holmstrom piled up chances and though the flow was still missing from both teams, the momentum seemed back with the visitors.

Like much of the night, the Islanders were not doing much with what they were given.

Finally, with 3:27 to go, Bo Horvat mugged Nico Hischier off a faceoff in the Islanders’ zone and backhanded the puck past Jake Allen for a 2-1 lead.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST NHL STANDINGS AND ISLANDERS STATS

“It wasn’t a clean draw win and I saw it laying there and tried to battle as hard as I could to get it,” said Horvat, who has five points in his last two games before making his Olympic debut next Thursday with Team Canada. “Saw it had landed near the net. Allen tried to poke check. Thankfully I got around it, slipped it five-hole.”

Mat Barzal added an empty-netter for good measure, but it was only fitting that the game was won by Horvat.

It was fitting, too, that just like for much of the last month, the Islanders gutted out two points with their meter looking dangerously close to empty for much of the 60 minutes.

Though Cal Ritchie provided a jolt of energy in his return from a lower-body injury, the Islanders played a perimeter game, at best, Thursday.

Less generously, they managed the puck poorly, with Jonathan Drouin guilty of one of the season’s most heinous turnovers toward the end of the first period.

The fourth line, though, was terrific, with Casey Cizikas scoring the opener from his own rebound before Hischier’s goal tied it at one for New Jersey.

JG Pageau had a great night at the dots and his line with Anders Lee and Holmstrom was up ice regularly.

The top line, quiet through two periods, woke up in the third in a big way.

It was enough.

Just enough.

“A lot of these games [last year] we just kinda found a way to lose,” Pulock said. “And this year, we’re finding a way to win.

“… When it goes right for you a couple times, you build some confidence in that and you feed off that and you remember being in those situations. You don’t freeze under pressure, you take it head on. I feel like that’s been a lot of big moments throughout this year where we’ve gone at it head on and not sat back and hoped.”

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Bo Horvat broke a tie late in the third period and the New York Islanders went into the Olympic break with a 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.

Horvat went to his backhand off the draw, slipping the puck past goalie Jake Allen, with only 3:27 left to play. Casey Cizikas scored in the second period for the Islanders and Mathew Barzal scored an empty-net goal to seal the win for New York.

Cizikas put the Islanders up 1-0 at 6:30 in the second period, cleaning up a rebound in front of the net. From behind the net, Allen sent the puck around the boards right to Marc Gatcomb while the Devils were in a line change. Gatcomb fired the puck to the slot, where Kyle MacLean got a stick on it, tipping it to Cizikas. Allen made the save on the first tip by Cizikas, but couldn’t control the rebound.

Allen stopped 11 shots.

Two nights after coach Sheldon Keefe lamented his team’s lack of mental toughness, the Devils showed some fight, but the Islanders showed more of it.

Star New Jersey center Jack Hughes remained out for the third straight game with a lower-body injury. Still, New Jersey pummeled New York goalie Ilya Sorokin, outshooting the Islanders 24-14.

Late in the second period, Allen sent an outlet pass up to Jesper Bratt in the neutral zone. Once in the offensive zone, Bratt slid a cross-ice feed to Nico Hischier at the edge of the right circle and his wrist shot beat Sorokin high on his glove side.

Sorokin made 23 saves.

Islanders: Visit Montreal on Feb. 26.

Devils: Host Buffalo on Feb. 25.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Avery Hayes scored twice in his NHL debut, Arturs Silovs made 26 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Buffalo Sabres 5-2 on Thursday night in the final game for both teams before the Olympic break.

Called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League with the Penguins hit by a series of injuries, Hayes tied at 1 at 9:18 of the period on his first shot on goal. He raced to beat defenseman Jacob Bryson to the puck and put a wrister past goalie Alex Lyon.

Hayes made it 2-1 with 1:13 left in the period, taking Anthony Mantha’s short, backward pass and knocking it in. He's the third Penguins player to score twice in his NHL debut, joining Rob Brown (two goals on Oct. 21, 1987) and Jake Guentzel (two goals on Nov. 21, 2016).

Hayes has 13 goals and 10 assists in 31 games this season in the AHL. He made his NHL debut with Blake Lizotte out for the birth of his first child, Rickard Rakell nursing a lower-body injury and Noel Acciari sidelined by an illness.

Fellow rookie Ben Kindel gave Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead at 7:44 of the second, Tommy Novak made it 4-2 with 4:29 to go in the third, and Kindel had a short-handed empty-netter with 14 seconds to go for his 14th of the season. The Penguins rebounded from a 5-4 overtime loss at the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.

Tage Thompson scored his 30th goal of the season for Buffalo. Jason Zucker also scored, and Lyon stopped 27 shots. The Sabres have lost two in a row.

Zucker opened the scoring for Buffalo at 1:46 of the first period. Thompson scored on a power play to cut it to 3-2 at 1:55 of the third.

Penguins: Host New Jersey on Thursday, Feb. 26.

Sabres: At New Jersey on Wednesday, Feb. 25.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

NEW YORK (AP) — Rookie Brandon Bussi made 16 saves for his second shutout, Andrei Svechnikov gave Carolina an early lead in the first period and the Hurricanes topped the New York Rangers 2-0 on Thursday night to extend their points streak to 10 games.

Jordan Staal scored into an empty net with 54 seconds left to seal it for the Hurricanes in the final game for both teams before the Olympic break.

The Eastern Conference-leading Hurricanes are 8-0-2 since Jan. 16 and 12-1-3 since Jan. 4.

Jonathan Quick made a season-high 41 saves for the Rangers, who were shut out for the ninth time this season and the seventh at home. New York has lost four in a row.

Svechnikov made it 1-0 game 6:26 into the first period on a wrist shot off an assist from Mark Jankowski. And Bussi, who has won his last seven starts, made that goal hold up.

Bussi’s first career shutout came on Nov. 30, 2025, when he stopped 15 shots against Calgary.

Hurricanes: Host Tampa Bay on Feb. 26.

Rangers: Host Philadelphia on Feb. 26.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Pregame

A trio of forward changes to the lineup tonight, Blake Lizotte is unavailable for tonight due to an impending birth which opens the door for Kevin Hayes to play for the first time since January 11th. Noel Acciari is too sick to play and Rickard Rakell has picked up an injury, opening the door for Avery Hayes to make his NHL debut.

Proving that all ‘90s nostalgia isn’t good, the Buffalo Sabres are using their alternate jerseys with this lineup.

First period

Buffalo gets on the board early, the Penguins turn the puck over in the middle of the ice and the Sabres jump on it. Jason Zucker shoots from outside, Arturs Silovs lunges for it with his glove and he comes up empty. The shot hits the inside edge of the post and goes into the net. 1-0 Buffalo 1:46 into the game.

Hayes has his welcome to the NHL moment, using a burst of speed to sneak past defender Jacob Bryson and create a mini-breakaway out of no where. Hayes finishes is strong on Alex Lyon for his first NHL goal on his first shot (but not first shift). What a moment, 1-1 game.

Evgeni Malkin takes a two-minute high-sticking penalty, the Pens kill it off. Then Hayes goes to set the career goal-to-period ratio. This time it’s a great bump pass from Anthony Mantha and a quick shot from Hayes nets his second of the night. 2-1 Pens.

Ryan Shea takes a penalty 12 seconds later, best timing ever, who would ever notice or remember that?

First 20 minutes is up, Avery Hayes and his family in the stands are on Cloud 9. A dream two-goal first ever period in the NHL has the Penguins up 2-1 on Buffalo.

Second period

Pittsburgh kills off the carryover time from the penalty and continues on.

Bryson’s bad night continues when he blows a tire and goes down, sending Ben Kindel on a 2-on-1. The replay is impressive, Kindel looks hard to his right for the pass the whole way, then suddenly snipes Lyon to the short-side with a perfect shot. 3-1 Pens, thanks to their rookies.

Sidney Crosby is the next in line for a penalty, the Sabres get some looks but can’t score.

The Penguins finally get their first power play of the night when Alex Tuch trips Silovs behind the net. Zone time doesn’t lead to a goal.

Pittsburgh extends their lead and is up by two with 20 to go.

Third period

Evgeni Malkin takes an offensive zone tripping penalty and Buffalo gets their first power play goal on their fourth time. Tage Thompson isn’t pressured down low, he’s got enough time to see that Silovs has left some room at the top of the net. A goal-scorer like Thompson easily finds it, notching his 30th of the season to bring the score to 3-2.

Later a couple of close calls, Egor Chinakhov nearly scores in front of the net, play goes the other way. Thompson bulls through Ilya Solovyov but Silovs makes his best stop of the night to throw out the leg and stop the puck.

Then some mayhem. Peyton Krebs crashes into Silovs, Connor Clifton doesn’t take kindly to that and drops the gloves with Krebs. Clifton gets the better of his former teammate by feeding him a bunch of knuckle sandwiches.

Pittsburgh still gets the power play out of it for Krebs completely barreling into the goalie. No goal, it does drain two more minutes off the clock.

The Pens get some insurance with 4:27 to go. Tommy Novak negates an icing call, the puck finds its way to Chinakhov near the blueline thanks to Malkin getting a piece of the attempted outlet. Chinakhov’s deep shot is stopped, rebound pops to Novak who calmly dekes to the backhand and deposits the trash into the net. 4-2 game.

Buffalo pulls the goalie with over two minutes to go. Mantha goes to the penalty box for hooking with 1:29 to go, the Sabres utilize their timeout to get their plan together. Doesn’t work, Kindel scores the shorthanded empty net goal to make it 5-2.

Some thoughts

• Great first goal for Hayes. It’s so fitting that the goal came on a play looked like nothing at the beginning, then only turned into something due completely to the effort that Hayes put into it. Not to get poetic (well, too late for that I suppose) but that’s practically the story of his career in a nutshell as an undersized, undrafted player that could only muster an AHL contract upon turning pro. He proved himself in Wilkes-Barre, got an NHL deal for this season. Impressed in camp and prospect tournaments along the way, still took a while to get his first game in the show now at age 23 and fairly deep into this season. It didn’t take very long for Hayes to show what’s been his “long-term overnight success story” due to the skating burst, extra desire and find the ability to finish and standout, making a real name for himself.
• The only thing that could make it even better is a second goal. It was more of a right place at the right time, courtesy of the sweet setup by Mantha, but hey, there’s something to be said about showing up at the right place at the right time.
• Along those lines for timing and circumstance working out, you gotta think and remember that had Acciari not been sick OR Rakell been able to play OR Lizotte not need to leave the team for an impending birth, A. Hayes wouldn’t have been called up and played tonight. A lot of stars had to align to get his NHL debut to happen on this night. Wild how it all worked out, which always makes a great story that much more special and fun when so many factors come together in just the perfect way.
• Hayes told Hailey Hunter during the first intermission interview on TV that he was changing into his suit while the car service was driving him to Buffalo, having only learned he would be needed and playing late this morning. I mean you just can’t make this stuff up, guy wakes up in Wilkes this morning having scored a goal against the Hershey Bears last night, the next thing he knows he’s scrambling to get to Buffalo in time to make his NHL debut.
• Bob Grove Stat of the night: Hayes joins Jake Guentzel and Robbie Brown. Not bad company there.
• Per HockeyFights, this was the seventh Penguin fight of the season, coming in Game No. 56. Doesn’t even seem that weird any more with its absence. Probably the most entertaining one of the year too, Clifton hit Krebs with lefts and rights with some pretty good shots.
• Silovs didn’t have to be remarkable but his stop on Thompson in the third period when it was a 3-2 game was a complete difference-maker in how this game played out. Pittsburgh was up 3-1, and as you might have heard, have had some struggles with keeping leads late into games this season. (And, as noted in the preview, Buffalo is extremely strong with scoring in the third period). If the game goes to 3-3 on that play – and it well could have – it very well was trending towards being another tough night for the Pens. Get a key stop at a key time and a lot of good things can happen. The Pens got that tonight.
• Rust didn’t get on the scoreboard but he did a great job on the PK blocking all kinds of shots, passes, marking up on Josh Doan when he drove to the net for backside plays.

Ta

The Artemi Panarin trade has completely taken the rest of the intrigue and the energy out of the Garden.

With the Panarin saga finally reaching a conclusion with his trade to the Kings, the Rangers played their final game before the NHL break for the Winter Olympics — and the corresponding league-wide roster freeze — with the knowledge that their devolving season eventually will resume with more work to do for general manager Chris Drury to retool the roster for 2026-27 and beyond.

That pre-Olympic finale Thursday night only represented more of the same for the crashing Blueshirts, however, as they fell for the fourth straight game without Panarin with a sleepy 2-0 loss to the Hurricanes at the Garden.

It marked the ninth time they have been shut out this season — and inexplicably, the seventh time on home ice — and head coach Mike Sullivan wasn’t pleased with the effort.

“I thought they outplayed us. … The first two periods weren’t nearly good enough,” Sullivan said afterward. “My message to the group was, I will acknowledge that we’re in a little bit of a difficult circumstance and none of us really want to be in this position. … But the reality is we are where we are.

“I thought tonight that we lacked a certain competitive spirit. It’s simply unacceptable on our part.”

Panarin, who inked a two-year contract extension worth $22 million with Los Angeles to bypass unrestricted free agency this summer, was dealt for junior forward prospect Liam Greentree and at least one conditional third-round draft pick, depending on Los Angeles’ postseason success.

The last-place Rangers previously had played without Panarin while their leading scorer was held out of the lineup in two defeats to the Islanders last week and another against the Penguins before Wednesday’s trade.

Before the game, Sullivan had said he wished the 34-year-old winger “the very best” in a conversation after the trade was announced.

He added that he “already had addressed the circumstances” of potential additional trades with his squad, which is now mired in a 3-13-2 tailspin to sink to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings at 22-29-6.

“From the drop of the puck, we got outplayed all night,” said captain J.T. Miller, who will join Sullivan as part of Team USA in Italy. “It wasn’t good enough. We wanted to go into the break feeling good about ourselves, and it’s quite the opposite right now. So it sucks.”

With the 20-year-old Greentree slated to finish out his current season with OHL Windsor, the Rangers will continue to plug the gaping hole left by Panarin from within.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST NHL STANDINGS AND RANGERS STATS

Will Cuylle mostly has skated in his spot the past several games alongside center Vincent Trocheck.

“You know that we’re not going to plug a player in, and he’s going to replace what Artemi does for this team,” Sullivan said. “I think what we’re trying to do is build a team game where we can replace it by committee, so to speak. I think we can do a better job at being harder to play against, giving up less opportunities on the defensive side, which should allow us an opportunity to create some offense off of that. But we’re not plugging anybody in and saying, ‘Hey, you’re gonna go replace what Artemi’s brought to this group.’ That would be unfair.”

Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov gathered in a failed clearance attempt by Vladislav Gavrikov and opened the scoring with a wrister from the slot past Quick for a 1-0 lead 6:26 into the game.

Mika Zibanejad had a strong chance on the power play later in the period, but he rang the puck off the crossbar and the Rangers generated little else against Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi (16 saves).

Quick made 41 stops to keep the Rangers within one despite a lopsided shot disparity before Jordan Staal added an empty-netter in the final minute.

“[Quick played] extremely well,” Sullivan said. “I think he did his very best to drag us into the fight. But we needed more guys to do that for us.”

The Ottawa Senators have entered the Olympic break on a winning note, defeating the Philadelphia Flyers 2–1 in overtime on Thursday night in a fine defensive road performance.  Tim Stutzle scored the OT winner for the Senators on a gorgeous deke past Flyers goalie Dan Vladar.

As if playing on the eve of a three-week holiday weren’t enough of a distraction, the Sens’ scheduled starting goalie, Linus Ullmark, fell ill during the day and couldn’t play. He's played two games, winning both, since returning from a month-long leave of absence. That called James Reimer into late action as the starter, with Hunter Shepard recalled from Belleville.

After a scoreless first period, Nick Cousins broke the deadlock midway through the second, cramming home a rebound off a Shane Pinto shot, and that looked for a long time like it might stand up as the game-winner.

Pinto showed some excellent patience at the side of the Flyers' net before ripping a wrist shot off Vladar's pads, and looked like it was probably designed to create the rebound.

Reimer’s save of the night came midway through the third. With the Sens still clinging to a 1–0 lead, Sean Couturier broke hard to the front of the net. Reimer made a strong pad save and may have gotten a piece of the rebound as well.

But the Flyers pressed late and the Sens got caught with tired defenders out there. Jamie Drysdale's wrist shot got through a sea of players and found its way under Reimer's blocker. 

That assured the rival Flyers at least a point and forced overtime where it was defense be damned.

Both Brady Tkachuk and Stutzle got caught up ice, leading to a 2 on 1 for the Flyers. Stutzle hustled back to try and help, but Tkachuk was out of gas. Former 67 Travis Konecny missed the right post with his shot, and the puck rimmed all the way out to Tkachuk who was still slowly coming back at centre ice.

The captain left the puck for Stutzle, who blew past him, past Travis Sanheim and then past Vladar for the game winner.

The Senators outshot the Flyers on the night, 27-16, and they also got a little luck from the out of town scoreboard. The Buffalo Sabres, who hold one of the wild cards in the East, lost 5-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins. However, the Washington Capitals, the best of the conference's non-playoff teams, won 4-2 over Nashville to stay two points up on Ottawa.

With 25 games to play, the Senators are now seven points back of Buffalo (WC1) and six behind idle Boston (WC2).

Ottawa now enters the break with five wins in their last six games. Their next game won't be until Feb. 26 when they host the Detroit Red Wings.

Steve Warne
The Hockey News