Islanders' Kyle Palmieri impresses Patrick Roy with scoring from close range
The natural hat trick was nice, of course.
But that’s not what stood out to Patrick Roy.
Rather, what captured the coach’s attention is where Kyle Palmieri was on the ice when he scored the Islanders’ first three goals in a 5-1 trashing of the Bruins on Saturday night at UBS Arena.
“He competes for rebounds,” Roy said aftr practice Monday morning at Northwell Health Ice Center. “Look at the goals he scored last game. Two that I remember were almost in the paint. [The] power-play goal was almost in the paint. The first goal, he made a super-nice play on the wall — we’ve been practicing that a lot — and he [shot] five-hole [on Linus Ullmark] and [scored]. The last two were in the paint. I mean, shot, rebound, in.
“That’s what we talked about this morning. Sometimes you need to get inside and put your body in the right position. Kyle does that extremely well.”
And in doing so, the 33-year-old native of Smithtown made a little bit of franchise history. He recorded the fastest hat trick in franchise history (8 minutes, 47 seconds) and the Islanders’ first first-period hat trick since Jason Blake on Feb. 27, 2007 (in a 6-5 overtime win over the Flyers).
“He’s been an extremely good player in this league for a long time,” Casey Cizikas said. “To see him get rewarded like that, it’s definitely nice. He works extremely hard and he always brings his game, no matter what’s going on. So to see him get rewarded like that, to see him work hard and get those goals, we’re definitely happy for him.” A member of the ice crew removes hats from the ice after Kyle Palmieri of the New York Islanders scored his third goal of the first period against the Boston Bruins at UBS Arena on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
But as Roy stressed, as significant as the goals were, where they occurred on the ice might have been more important.
Palmieri opened the scoring 3:32 into the game with a snap shot from the left faceoff circle that got through Ullmark’s legs.
The next two may not have been aesthetically pleasing, but in the eyes of his teammates and coaches, they might as well have been Picassos.
With the Islanders leading 1-0 and on the power play, Palmieri — who was stationed by the far post — was able to flip the puck over a diving Ullmark after Bo Horvat’s shot ricocheted off Parker Wotherspoon.
On the third, he simply drove to the net and banged Ryan Pulock’s centering pass off Ullmark’s pads into a half-empty net.
For the Islanders (26-20-14, 66 points), who have won three straight to climb back into a playoff race, the goals reaffirmed what they already knew:
Scoring opportunities are becoming scarce. So is open ice.
Teams are beginning to play playoff hockey.
“Everything’s tighter out there,” Noah Dobson said. “Teams are tight now. There’s not as many free pucks, free opportunities, so you really [have] to work for it. So to get scoring throughout the whole lineup, it’s going to be key for us down the stretch here. We’re [going] to need everyone to keep scratching and clawing on our way up here.”
Notes & quotes: Roy said Ilya Sorokin will start Tuesday night’s game against the Blues . . . Matt Martin (undisclosed) and Hudson Fasching (lower-body injury) participated in practice, but Roy did not have an official update on their status for the game . . . Scott Mayfield (lower body) did not participate in practice.
