Islanders Get Much-needed Road Win Over Maple Leafs To Keep Pace In Tight Playoff Race

TORONTO — For all the pregame hype around Matthew Schaefer playing his first game in Toronto, it was the Islanders’ other area-native rookie, Cal Ritchie, who scored in his first game back home Tuesday.

And for all the consternation about the Islanders’ power play all year long, the 5-on-4 unit finally looks like it’s heating up, scoring twice for the second time in four games.

That all added up to a fairly straightforward 3-1 win against a Maple Leafs side that looks painfully aware of how poor a season they’re having.

Two points here was a box the Islanders had to check on this road trip that heads next to Ottawa, with a razor-tight playoff race affording little margin for error.

Coach Patrick Roy was asked afterward — and after the Blue Jackets dispatched Carolina — about watching Columbus and Pittsburgh, the Islanders’ two chief opponents in the race, win seemingly every night.

“I think they see us winning every night too,” Roy said.

His team, a winner in four of five, filled its end of the bargain here in workmanlike fashion. The Islanders led from 4:15 in and put on a clinic in defending a lead: controlling possession, putting the puck deep, keeping Toronto to the outside. It was far from the most entertaining game of the season, but the two headliners — Ritchie and the power play — carry serious implications if what happened Tuesday can last.

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There have been moments this season when Ritchie has seemed to waver in confidence, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, it felt like the Islanders were pushing for more out of the 21-year-old. He’s continued to have ups and downs, as expected from any rookie, but the move to the wing is going well. So is his move to the goal-line spot on the power play, which he’d never played before the Islanders assigned it to him.

“You watch a lot of clips,” Ritchie said. “Got a lot of really good players on this team that I can learn from. I’m trying to take it all in, trying to learn every day.”

It was only right, too, that Brayden Schenn — whom the Isles have assigned to mentor Ritchie — scored his first Islanders goal on an assist from the rookie, and it was a beauty, with Ritchie in the middle of a tic-tac-toe power-play goal that started with Mathew Barzal and ended with a Schenn one-timer for a 1-0 lead.

“We talked a lot,” Schenn said. “He’s working at it, and he’s getting rewarded for it, which is cool to see.”

It was the first of two goals the power play scored in the first period, and the second was all Ritchie, stuffing in his own rebound just nine seconds after Brandon Carlo went for a high stick. That made it a perfect homecoming for Ritchie, who said he got chills standing on the blue line for the national anthem.

That ought to boost Ritchie’s confidence plenty. Just as important: The power play suddenly seems potent, having won the Islanders a game in St. Louis last week — another two-point game for Ritchie — and having gotten them out to an early lead Tuesday.

At this point in the year, it’s likely too late to rescue the Islanders’ woeful ranking at 5-on-4, but they can certainly render it meaningless. Finally, there appear to be signs of a breakthrough.

“It wasn’t anything pretty,” Bo Horvat told The Post. “We just took pucks to the net, and Ritch did a great job taking the puck to the net, especially on his goal. And a great feed over to Schenner on his.

“We’re not trying to overcomplicate things. It’s just moving the puck fast and doing it well.”

For all that, plus Barzal notching a three-assist night for the first time since January 2024, one would think this game had plenty more excitement than it did.

Aside from the odd moment, though — Morgan Rielly dropping gloves with Kyle MacLean, Emil Heineman’s one-timer that made it 3-1 off a suffocating top-line shift — the game stayed in a sort of stasis. The Leafs, with little energy in front of a quiet home crowd, never really forced the issue, and the Islanders were plenty content with that equilibrium.

All told, it was one of the more forgettable 60 minutes of the season. If its trends can last, though, it may be one of the more significant.