It's too early for Santa Claus; but not for Stan-ta.

It's too early for Santa Claus; but not for Stan-ta.

The bearded Stan-ta -- alias The Maven -- kids you not; the New York Islanders protected a tenuous third period lead and conked the contentious Canes 5-4 in their Raleigh rookery, PNC Arena, last night.

Playing his role to perfection, Anders Lee led like a captain, scoring the winning goal while adding two assists in what often is known as a "four-point game."

More good news: Lou Lamoriello's defensive find, Mike Reilly, contributed a goal, plus an assist while his backline buddy Sebastian Aho was a lamplighter as well. Aho opened the scoring in the first, leading to the "New Isles Style," firewagon hockey that has surprised critics, but not coach Lane Lambert.

"We have some offense of our own," said the Skipper. "We made some pretty good plays on the goals. Do we want to go up and down? No; not totally, but we can go up and down."

The best at it was Lee whose tally hit the 250-goal landmark level while adding two helpers. That makes it a total of ten goals so far for the Minnesotan and nine in his last 18 games. Not too bad when you consider that Anders' opening season batting average was one red light in 15 games.

How did he break the slump? With good, old perseverance and grim determination.

Lee: "I just had to stick with it and continue to work at it until I put my game in place. It was a matter of time but it also was on me to pick it up. Meanwhile, my linemates were playing solid hockey and creating opportunities." 

Refreshing: That's the best way to describe the manner in which Reilly has been playing since Lou plucked him from the Used Defenseman Lot. At 14:12 of the second period, Mikey took a pass from Matty Barzal and one-timed it past Pyotr Kochetkov in the Carolina goal.

That made it 4-2 for the Isles but, better still, Reilly was part of a blueline brigade helping Ilya Sorokin with an assortment of blocked shots that held off a late third period Canes attack when the score was 5-4.

"Our bench was calm (during the onslaught) with a bit of a 'next man up' mentality," Reilly explained. "We were able to do this while Sorokin made a couple of huge saves."

There's no question that this was a game where the Blue and Orange goaltending made the difference between a W or an L. Sorokin made 36 saves and made the biggies when it most counted in the final frame after Stefan Noesen made it a 5-4 game with a power player at 9:17.

As for the Isles' offense, Reilly set up Brock Nelson at 14:43 of the first period to give the Visitors a 2-1 lead and Bo Horvat -- back with points after a one-game hiatus -- came through -- still in the first -- to provide a 3-1 advantage. 

Lee: "We've been building here and putting a lot of solid hockey together. Anytime you go into a (Christmas) break you want to be feeling good."

As far as the topsy-turvy marathon for the ultimate playoff berth, the Islanders now are eight wins over the .500 mark (16-8-9) for 40 points and second place in the Metro Division.

They stand just ahead of Philly (39) and Carolina (38). 

"We knew the importance of this game," Lee concluded. 

As for Ye Olde Stan-ta Claus, he consulted his list, checked it twice to see who's naughty and nice and offered this gift to the Isles.