Islanders double up on Blue Jackets
NEW YORK -- Brock Nelson and Jason Chimera scored less than five minutes apart early in the third period Tuesday night as the surging New York Islanders pulled away from the Columbus Blue Jackets and earned a 4-2 victory at Barclays Center.
The Islanders led 2-1 after two before Nelson skated up along the right side of the ice and fired a shot past Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who was screened by teammate Seth Jones, just 35 seconds into the third.
Chimera made it 4-1 at the 5:21 mark, when he scored an unassisted goal after picking up a loose puck at center ice following a Blue Jackets turnover.
Josh Bailey and Nikolay Kulemin also scored for the Islanders (20-17-9). John Tavares had two assists.
Goalie Thomas Greiss recorded 21 saves as the Islanders won for the fourth time in five games (4-0-1) and improved to 3-0-1 under interim head coach Doug Weight.
Nick Foligno scored in the first period, and Cam Atkinson added a third-period goal for the Blue Jackets (32-11-4). Columbus is 5-6-0 since its franchise-record, 16-game winning streak from Nov. 29 through Jan. 3.
Bobrovsky made 20 saves before being pulled following Chimera's goal. Backup Joonas Korpisalo stopped all five shots he faced in relief.
Foligno put home a rebound to give the Blue Jackets the lead 8:55 into the first. Ryan Murray's shot from the faceoff circle ticked off teammate Alexander Wennberg as well as Islanders defenseman Nick Leddy. With the puck skittering in the crease, Foligno out-lunged Greiss and pushed it into the net.
Kulemin played a role in both of the Islanders' second-period goals. He was briefly credited with the tying goal at 2:21, when he was jostling for position in front of the net with Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones as Josh Bailey passed from the faceoff circle. The puck ticked off the skate of Jones and past Bobrovsky for the 100th goal of Bailey's career.
Positioning himself in front of the net resulted in the go-ahead goal for Kulemin with 3:31 left in the second. Calvin De Haan's shot from the blue line first sailed past Blue Jackets center Sam Gagner, who was attempting to block it, and bounced off the back of the leg of Islanders center John Tavares. Kulemin then backhanded the rebound for his eighth goal of the season.
NOTES: The Islanders scratched C Anders Lee (illness) as well as LW Anthony Beauvillier and D Scott Mayfield. Lee participated in both the morning skate and pre-game warmups before being scratched. ... Islanders LW Andrew Ladd returned to the lineup after missing four games with an upper-body injury. ... The Blue Jackets scratched D Markus Nutivaara and D David Savard with undisclosed injuries along with LW Markus Hannikainen. Nutivaara missed his fifth straight game while Savard sat for the third consecutive contest. ... Blue Jackets G Sergei Bobrovsky has started four of five games since he missed three straight contests due to illness from Jan. 10-14.