OTTAWA — Rick DiPietro made his third start of the season and made 23 saves, but the Islanders were on the wrong end of a 3-1 decision against the Senators Tuesday night.
The Islanders goaltender allowed Andre Benoit and Dave Dziurzynski to score their first NHL goals, and Craig Anderson made 37 saves for the Senators, who also got a goal from Colin Greening.
Travis Hamonic scored for the Islanders. His wrist shot at 2:44 of the third period cut the Ottawa lead to 2-1 and ended a scoreless streak of 103:19 for the Isles, who went 0-for-4 on the power play.
Islanders coach Jack Capuano said his team played a good game, especially after a 7-0 home loss to the Flyers on Monday.
“It’s a loss but [the] guys obviously worked hard. We had a lot of chances, we stayed the course and kept to the game plan but their goaltender played well,” Capuano said. “We had a good system review [yesterday] morning. Obviously our game wasn’t very good against Philadelphia and we just wanted to go out and work hard for one another and play with a lot of passion. I thought we did that. We did a lot of good things.”
Dziurzynski gave the Senators a 3-1 lead at 17:25 of the third with his first NHL goal in just his third game.
DiPietro couldn’t handle the initial shot and Dziurzynski poked the rebound home. Senators rookie defenseman Eric Gryba picked up an assist for his first NHL point.
Greening opened the scoring in the second period for a struggling Ottawa power play that came in on an 0-for-24 slump.
With five Islanders, including DiPietro, around him, Greening jammed a loose puck home for his second of the season at 6:01.
Benoit then added his first in the NHL off a pass from Jokob Silfverberg just 2:36 later.
Matt Moulson played his 262nd consecutive game, which is the fourth-longest streak in Islanders’ history.
Isles defenseman Matt Carkner missed his homecoming as he sat out the game with a groin injury. Carkner, a native of Winchester, just outside Ottawa, spent three seasons with the Senators before signing with the Islanders in the offseason.