NEW YORK _ The Islanders went from playing the team with the most points in the NHL to the one with the least in the Western Conference on back-to-back nights.
Squeezing points out of either game was equally as tough.
The Islanders, with three goals late in the third period, extended their point streak to a season-high eight games (6-0-2) with a 4-2 win over the last-place Kings on Saturday night before a crowd of 13,917, the sixth sellout in nine games at NYCB Live's Nassau Coliseum. It's their longest point streak since going 8-0-2 from Nov. 25-Dec. 13, 2015.
Rookie Michael Dal Colle, tipping defenseman Ryan Pulock's shot from the right point, scored the winner at 17:37 of the third period and Brock Nelson added an empty-netter at 18:29 for the Metropolitan Division-leading Islanders (30-15-6), who are 8-0-0 in the second game of back-to-back sets.
Robin Lehner made 34 saves for the Islanders while Jonathan Quick stopped 28 shots for the Kings (20-27-4), who were playing for the first time since Jan. 21 after their combined All-Star break and bye week.
Ilya Kovalchuk redirected Dustin Brown's shot to give the Kings a 2-1 lead at 13:15 of the third period but Mathew Barzal converted defenseman Ryan Pulock's feed to make it 2-2 just 31 seconds later.
The Islanders came out of their extended All-Star break and bye week with a thrilling 1-0 shootout loss to the NHL-leading Lightning on Friday night at the Coliseum, a physically edgy, fast-paced goalie's duel between Thomas Greiss (36 saves) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (36 saves).
Naturally, a letdown coming off such an emotional game on a back-to-back was at least a bit of a concern.
"I think you want to make sure you're emotionally engaged," Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. "There's an urgency to your demeanor because the points are important. This time of the year, you're trying to collect points. Get a point every night, make sure you're doing that against good teams.
"We got an opportunity at home to see if we can get some distance on some teams because that's going to be important," Trotz added. "Our schedule down the stretch is teams we have to beat out or teams that are right with us. We've got to make sure we collect points and are playing good hockey."
Casey Cizikas, who also scored the Islanders' first goal in a 7-2 win at Los Angeles on Oct. 18, made it 1-0 at 6:09 as he established position just above the crease and used his skate to move the rebound of defenseman Johnny Boychuk's shot to his forehand.
The Islanders took eight of the game's first nine shots but Anze Kopitar, a game-time decision because of illness, redirected Alex Iafallo's feed to the right post off a two-on-one rush to tie the score at 1 at 8:07 of the first period. That marked the first five-on-five goal the Islanders had allowed since Andy Greene's goal at 7:07 of the third period in a 4-1 win over the Devils at the Coliseum on Jan. 17. The Islanders followed that with shutouts over the Capitals and Ducks and allowed two power-play goals in a 3-2 shootout loss at Chicago on Jan. 22 before their break.
Lehner, named the NHL's second star of the month for January, had little chance on Kopitar's goal and continued his strong play in the second period, particularly as he smothered Kovalchuk's chance at the right post at 14:17 after Quick had stopped Matt Martin up ice.
Lehner might have been at his best in stopping four shots, two by Kovalchuk, after Anders Lee was called for tripping at 4:50 of the third period.
