There will be times during this upcoming nine-game road trip when the Islanders are going to need backup goalie Jean-Francois Berube to win a tight game. Although he backstopped them to a 6-4 win over the Devils on Sunday night at Barclays Center, his sixth start of the season left a little to be desired.
“It’s just about finding consistency to my game,” Berube said after he stopped 26-of-30 shots in place of regular starter, Thomas Greiss, who played in the team’s 3-2 loss to the Devils in Newark on Saturday. “That’s the biggest thing — when you don’t play a lot, it’s hard to be consistent. I have a really important job to do, and those back-to-back games are not easy. But that can’t be an excuse. I have to be the best player on the ice.”
The Islanders have five sets of back-to-backs left in the 24 remaining regular-season games. With Greiss having cooled off a bit over the past few weeks, there will be opportunities for Berube — and the team can hardly afford to sacrifice points.
“We have two good goalies,” said interim head coach Doug Weight, who hopes to get more game-like practice for both netminders. “We have faith in them.”
Berube said overall he thought his game was sharp, but would have wanted back both Kyle Palmieri’s second-period goal from the slot, as well as Taylor Hall’s goal on a left-wing rush in the third period.
“I have a huge role on the team, and it’s about stepping up for my teammates,” Berube said. “They’ve done a really good job in front of me. So [after] today, I owe them one.”
Weight made a small change in his line combinations, moving 19-year-old rookie Anthony Beauvillier off the wing and to center, bumping Brock Nelson to left wing with Ryan Strome on the right.
“They were great,” Weight said of the line he mostly matched up against the Devils’ top unit with Hall and Travis Zajac. As for Strome’s two-goal, three-point game, Weight thought it was a big step in the right direction.
“He’s competing, he’s working,” Weight said. “It seems like he’s making some plays, he’s getting some swagger back in his game.”
Weight opened his postgame press conference by congratulating the Islanders’ first-year television play-by-play man Brendan Burke and his wife on the birth of their second child on Saturday. Burke was replaced this weekend by longtime Islanders voice Jiggs McDonald, but he will return to the booth for the start of this road trip, Tuesday in Detroit.
Weight originally said it was their first child, and when corrected, he said, “Alright! Way to go, Brendan!”
Forward Cal Clutterbuck missed his ninth straight game — and 10th in the past 11 — with a lower-body injury. … Weight had seven defensemen take warm-ups because one of them was “a little banged up,” but it remained the same lineup as Saturday, with Scott Mayfield in and Adam Pelech as the healthy scratch on the backend.
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