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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Brock Nelson had not just been an Islander for 12 seasons. He had also never missed more than 10 games in a season.
So as life without Nelson began on Saturday night, with the Islanders on the first game of a West Coast trip coming off four days between games, maybe it wasn’t too big a shock that the Islanders looked passive for a lot of the first period.
“It was strange,” Anders Lee told The Post after the 4-2 victory over the Sharks at SAP Center. “But glad we could play the game and get through it, you know what I mean? Just go on with this group and we’re excited to do that. This league offers an exciting day full of news yesterday, but we got to play a hockey game tonight.”
Take this single game with the grain of salt it deserves.
But if the Islanders, who are now just three points out of a playoff spot, albeit with five teams to jump, have a run in them, much of it is likely to come on the back of Ilya Sorokin.
Sorokin, who has started all but six games since Nov. 29, got the Islanders through a rocky start with 20 saves in the first 20 minutes and finished with 38 stops in one of his best performances of the season.
“Vintage Ilya,” Lee said. “He’s just so solid.”
Sorokin dragged the Isles to the playoffs two seasons ago when Mat Barzal was hurt over the regular season’s last six weeks.
Now, Barzal is hurt again, Nelson is a goner and the Islanders are going to need everything from their goalie.
“I don’t like when it happens, but I feel like when we’re giving more shots in the first period, he feels so good,” coach Patrick Roy said. “He gets in his game, gets in his groove. The consistency he’s been giving us, it’s important. Tonight, having him having a great start helps us a lot.”
Despite San Jose playing up ice for the entire first — and much of the game — the Sharks never led.
Anthony Duclair’s power play goal against his former team 10:43 into the match gave the Islanders a lead they did not relinquish, with Jean-Gabriel Pageau stretching it to 2-0 by the first intermission.
“Feel good,” Sorokin said. “Had a lot of shots, so I feel good in the first period. It was good for me, for my game tonight.”
Nikolai Kovalenko got the Sharks within 2-1 on a power-play tip-in 6:27 into the second, but it took just a few minutes of the third period before the Islanders broke it open.
Lee wired in a puck from the faceoff dot just 1:13 into the final period and Adam Boqvist scored the Isles’ second power-play goal of the night a couple minutes later, putting one through traffic to beat Alexandar Georgiev.
It was just the third time this season the Islanders scored multiple power play goals in a game. That is another piece of the puzzle which becomes all the more important now that they have lost one of their best scorers at five-on-five.
“We moved it. Moved the puck,” Lee said. “Guys weren’t holding onto it too long. We got retrievals after shots, [that’s] big, too, get another chance at it. Got our retrievals and the guys up top brought the puck to the net. Those are the three big keys.”
With a hole now punched into the middle of their top six — Pageau played in what had been Nelson’s spot on the second line Saturday, with Casey Cizikas sliding over to center the third line — the entire league is going to count the Islanders out in a crowded playoff race.
Of course, the Isles have heard all that before.
This is quite a different situation than they’ve faced in the past. But at least in that sense, it’s the exact same.
