Oct 16, 2025; Elmont, New York, USA; New York Islanders center Bo Horvat (14) celebrates after scoring a goal in the second period against the Edmonton Oilers at UBS Arena. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
ELMONT, NY — Bo Horvat recorded a hat trick, but it was his second goal of the night that was the game-winner with 4:46 remaining, lifting the Islanders to their first win of the season, a 4-2 triumph over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night at UBS Arena.
With it, the Islanders (1-3-0) avoid dubious history as they had never started a season 0-4-0 in their previous 53 years — and they won’t this year.
“You never just want the losses to start piling up,” Horvat said. “Especially against a team like that with a lot of offense and a lot of good hockey players, it definitely felt great. I think that gives our group a lot of confidence in here.”
After taking a high stick that sent Oilers forward Trent Frederic to the penalty box with 4:53 to go, rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer extended his point streak to four straight games to start his career with the secondary assist on Horvat’s game-winner. From the point, he fed Mathew Barzal at the left circle, who centered it toward the mid-slot where Horvat finished.
He capped off his hat trick — the second of his career and first since 2019 — with an empty-netter with 8.1 seconds to go.
“I’ve definitely had a lot of two-goal games, so to finally get a hat trick again, that felt good,” Horvat said.
Barzal had two points on the night, which featured his first goal of the season to open the game, while the 18-year-old Schaefer became the youngest player in NHL history to start hsi career with a four-game point streak.
“I assume he must be feeling more and more comfortable on the ice,” Islanders head coach Patrick Roy said. “It’s impressive for a player of that age the way he’s performing.”
“It really doesn’t matter at the end of the day how many points you have or whatever,” Schaefer added. “I just want to win, and I just want to be there for the group. I want them to trust me. I want them to rely on me in all situations.”
The Oilers scored two unanswered goals through Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to cancel out Barzal’s tally, but Horvat netted a short-handed, tying goal late in the second period that ultimately forced overtime.
David Rittich, Iilya Sorokin’s backup making his Islanders debut, made 32 saves while Edmonton’s Stuart Skinner stopped 24 of his own.
“It feels obviously great,” Rittich said of his first start and win as an Islander. “We won a tough game and showed that even though we didn’t get a result in the first three games, we showed that we never gave up, we’ll never quit. We fought til the end.”
A remarkably fast first period, which didn’t see its first TV timeout come until there was 5:01 left and featured as strong an Islanders forecheck as there’s been this season, ended with the hosts taking their first lead since the season opener in Pittsburgh a week prior.
Barzal picked star Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard’s pocket clean at center ice with nothing but clear ice and Skinner in front of him. The center deked to his forehand in close and potted his first goal of the season into the upper-right corner of the net with 3:37 remaining.
It lasted all of 1:17, though, as a Scott Mayfield penalty opened the door for Leon Draisaitl’s power-play equalizer with 2:20 to go. The Oilers star was allowed to walk in alone on Rittich from the right circle, directly between defenseman Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech, before snapping a wrister over the pad of New York’s netminder.
Nugent-Hopkins gave the Oilers the lead 8:53 into the second period when he sniped a wrister over the glove hand of Rittich, who was off his angle, from the left circle.
Horvat tied it up with a short-handed tally late in the second on the heels of two big saves by Rittich on Draisaitl and Connor McDavid to keep his side down one. After fighting off a one-timer with his left pad, Jean-Gabriel Pageau shuffled the rebound that worked its way to the left boards with a back-handed shuffle pass that found Horvat alone at center ice.
He deposited his first goal of the season with a wrister over the blocker side of Skinner with 2:04 left in the period.
“That wasn’t an easy pass at all,” Horvat said of Pageau’s feed. “They had two guys kind of right there, and for him, all in one motion, to throw that, especially on his backhand like that, it’s not an easy play. That’s a highly skilled play by a great penalty killer and a great player. I just had to put it in from there. That gave us some life.”
Moments later, with the Oilers still on the power-play, Rittich turned away McDavid on a breakaway with a sprawling pad save as the superstar moved to his backhand at the left post.
“David played really well,” Roy said. “That save at the end of the second against McDavid, that was a huge one for us.”
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