The New York Islanders have finally won at their long-awaited arena at Belmont Park.
It took too long, and way too many injuries and mishaps and COVID outages, but they finally earned two points on home ice, 23 games into the season on Dec. 11, 2021.
They did it with mostly their full lineup, as Casey Cizikas and Brock Nelson returned, leaving only Ryan Pulock — hardly an “only” in impact — as the lone missing regular. (Anthony Beauvillier and Matt Martin were scratched along with Sebastian Aho, but those were coach’s decisions.)
The 4-2 win over the New Jersey Devils wasn’t a cakewalk but it wasn’t a lucky or desperation win either.