DETROIT – The New York Islanders dominated the Detroit Red Wings in a pair of games this season, but they didn’t face John Gibson the way Gibson has played the past few weeks.
The Red Wings hope Gibson’s goaltending can be one of the factors that puts them over the top in their final meeting with the Islanders tonight at Little Caesars Arena (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network).
Gibson, following a rough start in his first season with the team, has won five in a row, posting a 2.00 goals-against average and .940 save percentage during this stretch.
“I think he’s got control of the blue paint now,” coach Todd McLellan said. “What does that mean? He looks big, less rebounds, not erratic, not all over the place, finding pucks through screens and fighting to find it. When goalies are playing well, they just look bigger. And they look bigger to the coaching staff, too.”
Gibson won four games during recent six-game trip, recording shutouts in Vancouver and Chicago.
“He’s always been calm, even through the tough nights, where it seems like whatever he did and whatever we did, we couldn’t get a win for him,” Dylan Larkin said. “I talked to him. He felt like it was going to turn for him, and he stayed patient. He seems very locked in mentally and keeping everything in front of him. Next puck, next play. Just going out there, and he seems to be battling for us.”
The Islanders (19-11-3) have won three in a row and are 6-1-0 in their past seven. They defeated the Red Wings 7-2 on Long Island on Oct. 23 and 5-0 at LCA on Nov. 20.
McLellan called them a “definite playoff team.”
“They’re well-organized, they’re confident in getting good goaltending, and they’ve made us pay for a lot of mistakes,” he said. “We took it on the chin in New York, didn’t play well, came back here, took it on the chin, didn’t play well. Now we get our last chance against them, and we’ve all talked about the importance of season series and trying to win those, especially in the East. We obviously can’t do that, but we’d like to at least take some points if we could.”
Matthew Schaefer, the top pick in the 2025 draft, leads rookie defensemen in goals (nine), assists (14) and points (23).
“When we were on the Island, it was one of those nights where we want to forget about it, and we wanted to have a night like that here against them, and it didn’t go that way either,” Larkin said. “So, they’re a really good hockey team and they’re dangerous and they don’t give up much. They play the right way. I think it’s got to be a low-scoring game and two teams that have to play tight defense.”
