Ilya Sorokin, Jean-Gabriel Pageau lead Isles’ shutout of Flyers
Ilya Sorokin made 21 saves for his league-leading sixth shutout as the visiting New York Islanders notched a 4-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who came into Monday's contest with two goals in his last 26 games, scored twice for the Islanders. Mathew Barzal, who entered in a slump of his own with no goals in his last eight contests, also scored and added an assist for New York.
Tony DeAngelo also scored and Anthony Duclair chipped in with two assists for the Islanders, who avoided a third straight defeat. They bounced back nicely from their first shutout loss of the season -- a 5-0 defeat to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
New York also topped the Flyers for the first time this season after losing each of the first two matchups, both via shootouts.
Samuel Ersson turned aside 19 shots for Philadelphia, which was shut out for just the second time this season. The Flyers have lost eight of their last 10 games.
Pageau opened the scoring with a short-handed goal with 5:31 left in the first period. Casey Cizikas made the play with a no-look backhanded centering pass to a wide-open Pageau, who rammed it home from the slot.
That was the lone goal of the first period, but Barzal made it 2-0 less than six minutes into the second with a deflection of a shot by Isaiah George.
About seven minutes later, DeAngelo took a feed from Barzal on an offensive rush and blasted a one-timer past Ersson for a power-play goal.
Pageau added the exclamation point with 6:22 remaining in the third period. Maxim Tsyplakov found Pageau all alone behind the defense for a one-timer.
New York finished with a 33-24 advantage in faceoffs, while the Islanders committed just 11 giveaways to 16 for the Flyers.