Islanders slip past Canucks thanks to Kyle Palmieris two-goal night

Say this for Pete DeBoer’s Islanders: they are not playing down to their opposition.It wasn’t as easy as their win over the Blackhawks that started this homestand, but the Islanders ended it by taking care of business with a 3-2 victory over the Canucks on Tuesday night, with a pair of goals from Kyle Palmieri pulling them back to .500.DeBoer’s team played structured and effective hockey, surviving a shaky second period to regain control in the decisive third.That is as it should be against Vancouver, which has won just two of its first eight games and looks set for a miserable season.A hallmark of Islanders teams in recent years, though, has been struggling to put away or routinely beat teams just like that.

The Islanders, for better or worse, had a tendency to play to their opponent’s level.At least so far this year — and this is where the obligatory ‘it’s early’ caveat goes — that hasn’t been the case.Which, if DeBoer can turn it into a hallmark, will be critical to keeping the Islanders in the playoff race.Max Sasson seemed to zap the Islanders’ momentum at 7:52 of the second, cutting a 2-0 lead in half by blasting a rolling puck past Ilya Sorokin.Suddenly, the Islanders were losing battles, they were on their heels and you could feel the equalizer coming as soon as Kyle Palmieri tripped Liam Ohrgren late in the second.

Not only did Brock Boeser tied it up with a one-timer from the slot, but the Islanders ended the second with another needless penalty after Tony DeAngelo took exception to a Sasson check that came after the horn.It was a gut check moment for a team whose habit in the past would have been to let things spiral from there.Instead, they killed off DeAngelo’s penalty and — sparked, unsurprisingly, by Matthew Schaefer — found their game again. Twice in the third period’s first six minutes, Schaefer’s play with the puck led to extended pressure in the Canucks’ zone.On the second of those, after Schaefer had two shot...