OTTAWA — Erik Karlsson has turned his recent scoring slump into a distant memory.
Karlsson had two assists in Ottawa Senators’ 5-2 win over the New York Islanders on Sunday, giving him 17 points in his last five games.
In the five games before his hot streak, Karlsson a single goal.
His two assists Sunday gave him 65 points and the record for most points in a season by a Senators’ defenseman.
“I’m obviously happy about it but it’s not something that is going to be in my mind for long right now. I’m going to have to wait until after the season to think about it,” Karlsson said of the record.
“We’ve scored a lot of goals here over the last couple of games and obviously that helps out a lot.”
The old record of 63 was set by Norm Maciver in 1992-93.
Robin Lehner made 28 saves for Ottawa and Milan Michalek, Jason Spezza, Jim O’Brien, Chris Neil, and Kyle Turris also contributed goals.
Lehner was making his first start since being recalled from Binghamton on an emergency basis. He rejoined the NHL club after Craig Anderson cut his hand last Thursday in a culinary mishap.
It was Lehner’s second start with Ottawa this season.
“I felt pretty comfortable and I felt like I saw the puck well,” Lehner said.
“The defense really helped me out and the back checkers as well. They got a couple of goof chances, and one by my own mistake behind the net, but I felt good.”
John Tavares and P.A. Parenteau scored for the Islanders and Evgeni Nabokov made 19 saves.
The Senators led 2-1 heading into the third period when a turnover by Islanders defenseman Mike Mottau led directly to Ottawa’s third goal.
Mottau tried to backhand a pass from behind his net up the middle, but it went first to Chris Neil and then O’Brien, who took a wrist shot that caught the top of Nabokov’s glove before going in.
After Parenteau pulled the Islanders to within a goal at 9:04, Neil tapped Nick Foligno’s pass out of midair and past Nabokov at 12:59 to restore the Senators’ two-goal lead. Turris scored into an empty net to seal the victory.
“It was a big win all around,” Spezza said. “It was a hard fought game and Robin did a good job of keeping us in that first period. It wasn’t the best first 10 minutes we’ve had and he kept it 1-0 and gave us a chance to hang around in the game.”
The Senators converted both their power-play opportunities in the second period to take a 2-1 lead.
Karlsson fed Michalek in the slot and he then put a backhand past Nabokov at 12:21 to tie the game.
Just over four minutes later, Spezza ripped a slap shot over Nabokov’s shoulder and in from the top of the faceoff circle. Karlsson had set up the play by faking a shot, then feeding Spezza cross ice.
“We’ve got to take a little more pride in our game and get back to our foundation, where it was at the start of the year. Some of the guys should look in the mirror and know they could have worked a little harder tonight and been a little stronger on the puck at times,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said.
“You can’t look back though and you have to look forward. This next week is going to be huge.”
The Islanders had taken a 1-0 lead just 49 seconds into the game as Tavares beat Lehner finishing up a two-on-one for his 25th goal.