The New York Islanders have struggled to beat some bad teams this season, but the Columbus Blue Jackets have not given them too much trouble so far. They haven’t given away any points to their division rival, now having taken six of a possible six points from them. They also took six out of six points on this homestand, all in regulation, before they trek to the Pacific Northwest/Western Canada.
Importantly, there was no “playing down” to their opponent tonight, despite the close score. Solid goaltending from normally bad Joonas Korpisalo kept the Blue Jackets from being out of the game, and they did manage to snap Ilya Sorokin’s shutout bid with just over 20 seconds left on a very fluky body goal.