Isles, Wings try to shore up issues ahead of matchup

The New York Islanders have been collecting points if not victories lately. They will wrap up a five-game road trip at Detroit on Thursday night.The Islanders have at least one point in six of their last seven games (3-1-3), but they’ve lost four of their last five. A pair of those defeats came in overtime and their latest outing was decided by a shootout.They had won their previous two shootouts, but Calgary pulled out a 2-1 win on Tuesday.”It was a hard-fought game. I thought both teams played very well,” head coach Patrick Roy said. “I look at it like it’s a point, and I wish we had more than one point.”Most of the Islanders’ contests are hard fought and low scoring. Only twice during their first 19 games has either side scored more than five goals.Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov have been sharing goaltending duties.Varlamov stopped 30 of 31 shots before the shootout on Tuesday. He has allowed two or fewer goals in his last four starts.However, the offense stalled after Pierre Engvall’s second-period tally.”There wasn’t a whole lot out there, both ways,” defenseman Noah Dobson said. “In the third period, we had lots of great looks, just didn’t capitalize. We’ve got to find a way to get that second one and extend the lead when we have those one-goal leads.”The Islanders will match up with the Red Wings twice in the next five nights. They’ll play again on the Islanders’ home ice on Monday night.Their first meeting on Oct. 22 was a night of frustration for the Islanders. They had a 30-11 advantage in shots on goal but Detroit pulled out a 1-0 win as Patrick Kane’s first-period goal stood up.

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