PITTSBURGH – There’s no sugarcoating how injury-depleted the Islanders are as they played the first of what will be many games without top-line playmaker Mathew Barzal.
But in a huge game against a direct rival for a playoff spot, the undermanned Islanders found a way to win.
Bo Horvat and Anders Lee scored the equalizer and the go-ahead goal within one minute, 41 seconds in the third period and the Islanders held on for a 4-2 victory on Monday night at PPG Paints Arena in a feisty, playoff-like atmosphere. The teams combined for 62 penalty minutes after an intense dust-up at the end of the second period.
The Islanders (29-24-7), who got 44 saves from a brilliant Ilya Sorokin, moved one point ahead of the Panthers for the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card spot. The Penguins (27-20-9), who have lost four of five, are one point out of the second wild-card spot but have played four fewer games than the Islanders.
The Penguins’ Tristan Jarry made 28 saves as he returned from a nine-game absence with an upper-body injury. But he was shaken up when Horvat’s high shot hit him in the mask and collarbone at 5:07 of the third period and didn’t seem right after that.
First, Horvat tied the game at 2-2 at 8:34 with a sharp angle shot from the right that trickled through Jarry.
Then Jarry’s turnover led to Lee stuffing the puck in at the post at 10:15 after Hudson Fasching kept the play alive in the offensive zone.
Brock Nelson, who had a career-high 12-game point streak snapped in Saturday’s loss, had tied it at 1 at 5:19 of the second period as he wristed a shot past Jarry from the right circle on a two-on-one rush. Jason Zucker’s power-play goal at 12:26, knocking it in at the post after defenseman Jeff Petry’s blast from the point hit the other post, had given the Penguins a 2-1 lead. But the Islanders outscored the Penguins 3-0 in the third period with Nelson's empty-net goal clinching it.
Sorokin reached back with his paddle to rob defenseman Kris Letang at 17:15 of the second period, seconds before the melee. The Penguins were still unhappy defenseman Sebastian Aho brought down Sidney Crosby on the previous rush. Ross Johnston and Zucker each received minors for unsportsmanlike conduct and roughing as well as 10-minute misconducts as the teams combined for 44 penalty minutes in that sequence.
Sorokin had kept it close through a lopsided opening 20 minutes as the Penguins held a 19-7 shot advantage but only a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.
Coach Lane Lambert elevated rookie right wing Simon Holmstrom to the top line with Lee to start the game, though Casey Cizkas and Matt Martin also were double-shifted in Barzal’s spot as the first period progressed. The Islanders are also without injured forwards Josh Bailey, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Cal Clutterbuck and Oliver Wahlstrom.
The Penguins took a 1-0 lead at 6:12 as Sidney Crosby fed a cross-ice backhanded feed to Jake Guentzel for the easy tap-in after Holmstrom was caught out of position defensively.
