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Isles blank Devils to end skid

Mar 22, 2015 - 4:34 AM Newark, NJ (SportsNetwork.com) - Jaroslav Halak returned from a lower-body injury to make 26 saves, and the New York Islanders snapped their season-worst skid with a 3-0 blanking of the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night.

Halak, who sat out the Islanders' last game, earned his fifth shutout of the season.

Ryan Strome and Travis Hamonic each had a goal and one assist for the Islanders, who also got a boost from the return of Nick Leddy. The defenseman missed the last four games with an upper-body injury and New York lost all of them.

"We broke down a little bit. They had a few odd-man rushes, but when you work hard, it pays dividends and we got the two points," said Islanders coach Jack Capuano.

Cory Schneider stopped 27 shots for New Jersey, which had its three-game winning streak ended.

"I thought we matched the intensity, I thought we matched the effort, " said Schneider.

Strome opened the scoring 7:37 into the game. Nikolay Kulemin created a turnover in the New Jersey zone with his forecheck and sent a pass to Strome, who beat Schneider on the blocker side with a wrist shot from the left circle.

Hamonic made it 2-0 at 12:19 of the third period by one-timing a backhand pass from Strome past Schneider.

Kyle Okposo added an empty-netter with 38 seconds remaining.

Game Notes

New Jersey leading goal-scorer Mike Cammalleri missed a second straight game because of an illness, but veteran forward Patrik Elias played against the Islanders after being held out three games because of back spasms ... The Islanders swept the four-game season series and have won six straight in New Jersey.