OTTAWA – Special teams made all the difference for the Islanders as they opened a four-game road trip with a tense 4-2 win over the Senators on Monday at Canadian Tire Centre.
The Islanders (11-6-0), who won their second straight and for the ninth time in 11 games, went 2-for-3 on the power play and killed off five of the Senators’ six man-advantage opportunities, yielding just a five-on-three goal.
Semyon Varlamov stopped 36 shots for the Islanders. Jean-Gabriel Pageau, an Ottawa native who spent his first six-plus seasons with his hometown Senators, scored the winner as he got to the crease for a power-play goal at 8:21 of the third period to make it 3-1.