
Islanders get some early déjâ vu in season-opening overtime loss to Utah
NY Post
With two minutes to go in their season opener, the Islanders looked on their way to putting last year’s late-game struggles to bed, having seemingly completed a comeback on Maxim Tsyplakov’s first-ever NHL goal.
But when the night ended, Game 1 of 2024-25 felt a lot like Game 83 of 2023-24, with the Islanders having let that lead go to waste, ultimately losing in overtime, 5-4, to the Utah Hockey Club on Dylan Guenther’s game-winning goal.
It all gave off a bad feeling of déjâ vu, right down to the locker room, where Noah Dobson said, “Anytime you score a big goal, the next shift’s huge.
Those are moments in the game you gotta manage.”
The Islanders couldn’t manage them last year.
They couldn’t manage them Thursday night, twice taking the lead and twice letting Utah tie the game before their own goal was announced to the UBS Arena crowd.

Suddenly, someone had hit a rewind button and everyone had been transported back seven months. It was early spring instead of late fall, it was broiling hot outside the arena walls and not freezing cold. Everyone was back at TD Garden. There were 19,156 frenzied fans on their feet begging for blood, poised for the kill.












