Shorthanded Islanders throttle Canucks in dominant road win

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — This was the sort of performance that makes you forget the Islanders are playing without nearly a third of their regular lineup, the kind that makes you think maybe there is something sustainable here.The Islanders went into the building of a playoff team, and they owned the puck, tilting the ice by playing a hardworking game below the hashes and establishing a forecheck that had been missing two nights prior in Edmonton.They beat the Canucks, 5-2, a final score which, if anything, understated their performance the same way the 4-3 overtime loss to the Oilers Tuesday night overstated it.“I think we’ve been building our game toward a night like this where we put it all together and stuck with a lot of things,” Anders Lee said.

“Whether it is the power play, stuff like that.Kind of all facets of the game were big for us tonight, and I think that’s why we played a really solid 60 minutes.”In doing so, the Islanders extended a nascent points streak to five games with wins in three of them, all coming without Mat Barzal, Anthony Duclair, Alexander Romanov, Adam Pelech or Mike Reilly.

Over a six-game stretch without that quintet in which the stated goal has been to keep their heads above water, the Islanders are 3-1-2 for a .750 points percentage.It’s rarely looked as good as it did Thursday, and if the NHL counted all losses equally, it would be .500.But to those assertions, the retorts should be, ‘Who cares?’ and, ‘They don’t.’And if the Islanders can play like this regularly, then you can throw all that out anyway.“I like to be half-full [more] than half-empty in my glass,” said coach Patrick Roy before clarifying that yes, it is a glass of water.

“But anyway, my point is this: We are very confident right now.”Consecutive goals by Scott Mayfield and Pierre Engvall early in the second period broke a 1-1 tie, with Mayfield’s point shot deflecting off a Vancouver stick and leaving Kevin Lankinen out of p...