Last night’s game was almost exactly how the New York Islanders needed to play.
The San Jose Sharks appear to be one of the early contenders in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes—Connor Bedard and Connor McDavid, two Connors torching the league for the next ten or more years—and also traveled coast-to-coast, as the Anaheim Ducks had done ahead of Saturday’s game. Kevin Kurz, who covered the Sharks for a decade before coming east to New York, tweeted both Saturday night and last night that going from west to east takes more of a toll than the inverse and that perhaps the Isles have been beneficiaries of being the first opponent of the two California teams when they reach the east coast.