Islanders face Capitals in key wild-card matchup 

The Islanders still have a way to go to make this a successful five-game homestand.

But they have a chance. Monday night’s game against the Capitals at UBS Arena, the first of four games with the team directly ahead of them in the Eastern Conference, can tilt it toward the Islanders’ favor.

“As a group, collectively, we believe in one another,” defenseman Noah Dobson said after Saturday night’s 2-1 win over the Canadiens that snapped an 0-3-1 skid. “It’s on us to push each other and find that next level and have a good push here. We’ve got a division opponent who’s right in the mix with us on Monday night. So we’ve got to get momentum off of this game and come ready to go.”

The Islanders (23-18-3) are 1-1-1 on their homestand, which ends Wednesday night against the NHL-best Bruins. Saturday’s victory moved them one point ahead of the Penguins for the second wild-card spot. They are three points behind the Capitals, who have played one extra game.

“It’s big,” Casey Cizikas said of facing the Capitals. “You can’t really put any other words to it. We want to continue rolling here with two games left. We want to continue building and make this a good homestand.”

Cizikas opened the scoring against the Canadiens by tipping in Dobson’s feed from the point at 2:25 of the first period. But the Islanders still have scored only four goals in the first three games of the homestand.

Ilya Sorokin has allowed only four goals in the three games. He has started 11 of 12 games since a now-healthy Semyon Varlamov injured his groin on Dec. 17.

The Islanders did not practice Sunday, so there was no indication about Monday’s starting goalie, but coach Lane Lambert has no qualms about Sorokin’s recent workload.

“He’s managing his rest very, very well,” Lambert said. “He’s young and he’s shown no signs that he can’t handle it. The key is to manage his rest and recover, and he’s doing a good job.”

Lambert, at some point, likely will revert to a more equitable rotation with his goalies.

“Right now, we’ve all seen we haven’t given Ilya any goal support and he’s played very well for us,” Lambert said. “I’d say he’s on a bit of a roll, that’s basically the idea behind it. But Varly is a huge piece and he’ll play a lot coming up.”

The Capitals are 2-3-1 in their last six games and have scored only seven goals in their last four games, but they have won seven of their last eight road games.

In all, it’s a chance for the Islanders to show that the improvement displayed in Saturday’s win is for real.

“We’ve got to keep going,” said Anthony Beauvillier, who scored his first goal in nine games on Saturday. “We’ve got to find confidence in our game. Just get back to work and try to get some points here.”

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.