Vegas stymied by Sorokin, bad luck in 4-0 shutout loss to Islanders

Brock Nelson had a goal and an assist, and Ilya Sorokin had 30 saves for the New York Islanders in a 4-0 shutout of the Golden Knights. Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Casey Cizikas also scored for the Islanders.

Adin Hill had 17 saves for Vegas, who saw their three-game winning streak come to a crashing end.

The Golden Knights started off for the first eight minutes of the first period with the type of control we’ve seen from them the past few games. They nearly took the lead on the game’s first power play after Tomas Hertl hammered home a well-orchestrated pass from Jack Eichel. But Islanders coach Patrick Roy challenged it for offsides and won (albeit by a thin margin).

After that, New York picked things up and started to make a game of it. It was under three minutes until a scoreless period before a bad luck bounce off Noah Hanifin’s skate turned a few seconds later into goal number 19 for Anders Lee.

The second period was a disaster for the Vegas Golden Knights

The second period started off markedly faster in pace compared to the first one. Normally, that would be good news…if Ilya Sorokin wasn’t playing on the same Vezina level he’d been at last season. The same is true if the post didn’t make an annoying appearance early on. There were visions of Montreal on New Year’s Eve that started to permeate the air.

Five and a half minutes in, those visions became quite prominent via a turnover by Dorofeyev. One that Brock Nelson snagged like a silver dollar in the change hole, and turned it into his 11th of the season.

Vegas continued to try to pour it on Sorokin after that 2-0 goal in the hopes of clawing back into the game. But as he had started to become a pattern in the first, he stopped anything that came at him. When the tiniest hole in the Golden Knights's defense popped up, the Islanders would make them play. Enter Bo Horvat as an example, making it 3-0.

The third period didn’t do much to alleviate the sense of bad news that was in the air, especially in the first 9:15 where the Golden Knights were starting to run empty offensively, registering only two shots in that chunk of time. As the period went on, it became more and more prevalent, outside of a burst here and there. Not even a Roy-sized 4:04 of empty net time could burst the steel wall of Sorokin; Casey Cizikas provided the game’s sad period midway through.

Next on the Marquee:

It’s the other team from New York, the New York Rangers, coming to the Fortress on Saturday night at 7 P.M. They’ve been…a hot mess seems a fitting descriptor, though they beat New Jersey in OT tonight. Igor Shesterkin is 1-2 in his last three starts against Vegas with a 3.00 GAA. It's a pretty good sign in a night that could use some. Until then…