17-Game Point Streak
By Cory Wright
Given the parity in the NHL, any team can beat any other on any given night. Every NHL season is filled with improbable victories, underdog stories, and unsung heroes. And each team and player can catch fire for a night.
But what separates the great teams from the good teams, and the good from the bad, is the ability to play at a high level consistently. Getting a point in a single game is ordinary. Getting a point in 17 straight games, extraordinary.
The Islanders set a franchise record in the 2019-20 season, going on a 15-0-2 run to complete a 17-game point streak. With the season limited to 68 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this remarkable run accounted for a whopping 25% of their schedule.
It all began with a 3-2 shootout win over the Florida Panthers at Nassau Coliseum on October 12, though a streak only truly begins with the second win, which came on October 14 against the St. Louis Blues.
In a sense, the 3-2 comeback win over St. Louis was a foreshadowing of things to come. The Islanders trailed nearly the entire game and were down 2-0 with 5:31 to play but did not concede the contest. Brock Nelson sparked the Islanders, breaking through to cut the deficit to one, and Mat Barzal scored with 26.5 seconds to play in regulation to tie the score. Riding the momentum – and a boisterous Coliseum – the Isles completed the comeback in overtime, with Barzal feeding Devon Toews and stunning the defending Stanley Cup champs.
The comeback win revealed the character of the Islanders, who stuck with their process and ground their way to a win. They sacrificed for each other – Johnny Boychuk notably played two minutes in his own end without a stick and laid out to keep the puck in the zone on the tying goal – and never gave up on the game.
That proved to be a theme during the 17-game point streak, as the Islanders rallied out of several precarious positions. In some ways, the dramatic win vs St. Louis was overshadowed by other, even bigger, comeback efforts. On Nov. 16, the Islanders point streak looked poised to end at 13 games. They were down 3-0 to the Philadelphia Flyers heading into the third period in the unfriendly confines of a city offering no brotherly love. Again, the Islanders rallied. Anthony Beauvillier scored two goals and Barzal added another, with Beauvillier’s second tying the score with 2:04 to play. Jordan Eberle scored the game-decider in a shootout, as the Islanders left Philly in ski masks.
The next game unfolded in a similar fashion, with the Islanders down 4-2 with five minutes to play in the third period vs the Pittsburgh Penguins. Josh Bailey and Ryan Pulock sent the game to OT, where Brock Nelson ended it to extend the point streak to 15 games. How rare a feat were the back-to-back rallies? Consider that the Isles were the first team ever to win back-to-back games when trailing by multiple goals in the last seven minutes of each contest, per Elias Sports Bureau.
Two-straight comebacks were enough for the Islanders, who broke the franchise record with a 4-3 win in OT against the Penguins in their next game. Up 3-2 late in the third, the Penguins tied the score with 30 seconds to play. While the Isles had coughed up a three-goal, third period lead to the Penguins two weeks prior in a 4-3 OT loss, they had learned from their previous mistakes. Despite allowing a late goal, Nelson won it for the Islanders in OT, burying his second of the game.
That marked the 15th – and final – win of the streak, which had reached a sweet 16. The Isles ground out a point in a 2-1 OT loss to San Jose on Nov. 23 to reach 17 games, but the Goliath-like streak met an unlikely David in the Anaheim Ducks, who shut out the Islanders 3-0 on Nov. 25. The defeat by the Ducks was the Islanders’ first regulation loss in 45 days. Not even the dominant Islanders teams of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s — who had three 15-game point streaks — ever managed a streak that long.
And they did it the hard way, with 11 one-goal games and three late third period comebacks. They went 10-0-0 to start the streak and 5-0-2 on the back side. They did it via committee, with five players coming on and off injured reserve during the streak and 17 players lighting the lamp. In true Islander fashion, the contributions came from across the lineup.
Setting a team record was not the focus at the start of the streak, or even during it. But the Islanders’ focus on each individual game and shift added up to a lofty total.
“This group just focuses and stays in the moment,” Head Coach Barry Trotz said after the Islanders set the record. “They come to work, they come to compete every night, and they give you their best effort. That’s the Islander way. That’s a reflection on the way we play, that’s a reflection on the people we have, and that’s a reflection on the community we live in.”