NEW YORK — Andrew Ladd and Jason Chimera scored their first goals with the Islanders and helped New York to a needed victory in a finale of a long stretch of home games.
Cal Clutterbuck and Ladd scored 1:39 apart midway through the third period to lift the Islanders over Vancouver 4-2 on Monday night, giving the Canucks their ninth straight loss.
Chimera and Nikolay Kulemin also scored and Jaroslav Halak stopped 30 shots to help the Islanders improve to 2-3-2 in their last seven.
“We had a little bit of puck luck tonight,” New York coach Jack Capuano said. “The last few games we played well, we just haven’t got results. It’s good for the guys to get that feeling.”
Ladd and Chimera, New York’s top free agent signings in the offseason, had combined for just four assists through the first 12 games.
“It’s great for me and Jason, just getting that good feeling to put a couple of pucks in the net,” Ladd said. “Sometimes all it just takes is one and build off from there.”
Daniel Sedin and Markus Granlund scored, and Ryan Miller had 28 saves for Vancouver, which fell to 0-8-1 with eight straight regulation losses since opening the season with four wins.
“It’s tough. We need some good results,” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said.
“It’s nice we got the first (goal) tonight, it’s been a long time since that’s happened. ... We got one on the power play, and that hadn’t happened in a while, either. ... We didn’t take it away in the third like we needed to.”
Clutterbuck backhanded the rebound of a shot by Johnny Boychuk past Miller’s blocker side at 9:11 of the final period to give the Islanders a 3-2 lead.
It was Clutterbuck’s second of the season and first since the season-opener.
Ladd got his first with 9:10 remaining, firing a one-timer off a pass from Nick Leddy.
The Islanders completed a five-game homestand 2-1-2, bringing their record up to 3-6-2 during a stretch with 10 of 11 at home.
“There might be a little bit of a relief but I think we got a mature enough group to realize that there’s a couple of games in there that we probably should have won and we didn’t,” Capuano said.
Kulemin gave the Islanders a 2-1 lead at 7:38 of the second period with his first of the season. John Tavares knocked the puck away from Miller to Kulemin, who tipped it in from the right side.
It gave Tavares a point in five straight games (one goal, four assists).
The Canucks tied it on the power play with 3 1/2 minutes left in the middle period as Bo Horvat got the rebound of his initial shot off the boards and sent the puck back in front of the net, where Granlund fired it into the open cage.
The Canucks entered a league-worst 7.7 percent on the power play (3 for 39) and ended an 0-for-19 skid on their second chance of the night.
Sedin opened the scoring as he stole the puck inside the blue line, skated in on Halak and fired it in off the goalie’s glove for his fourth of the season at 4:22.
“That was a turnover on their blue line and I was fortunate to get a half breakaway,” Sedin said. “It was nice to get the first one, but we need more of those.”
Chimera tied it nearly 5 1/2 minutes later with his first. Anders Lee knocked Brock Nelson’s shot down at the left side of the net and it bounced across the front of the goal to Chimera, who tipped it into the open goal.
The Bruins beat the Sabres 4-0, with Tuukka Rask rebounding from his first loss with 32 saves for his second shutout, and Brad Marchand and David Krejci scored power-play goals in the second period.
David Pastrnak had a power-play goal and Riley Nash scored for the Bruins, who won for the fourth time in five games. Rask recorded his 32nd career shutout after losing 5-2 against the New York Rangers on Saturday. He improved to 7-1 this season.
At Sunrise, Florida, Reilly Smith scored a tiebreaking goal with 4:28 left, Roberto Luongo made 34 saves and the Panthers beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-1. — AP
