ELMONT, NY — Bo Horvat converted a breakaway 52 seconds into overtime for his second goal of the game that lifted the New York Islanders to a comeback 5-4 victory on Tuesday night at UBS Arena.
Off a whiffed shot by Penguins defenseman Brett Kulak in front of the Islanders’ goal, Mathew Barzal shuffled a skittering puck into the path of Horvat, who calmed it, and fired a wrist shot over the glove of netminder Stuart Skinner to end it.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good,” Horvat, who hadn’t scored since Dec. 30 after contending with a significant injury absence, said. “It’s always good to get on the scoreboard. It’s always great to score and help your team that way.”
Trailing 4-3 inside 10 minutes to go, defenseman Ryan Pulock’s wrister from the left circle with 4:36 left in regulation forced overtime to cap off a frenzied three-goal stretch in less than seven minutes.
Pittsburgh’s Justin Brazeau redirected a Brett Kulak shot at the 10:40 mark of the third to put the visitors in front, just 2:03 after Barzal equalized for the Islanders on a deflected one-timer from the blue line.
With it, the Islanders (31-21-5, 67 points) snapped a two-game losing streak, which helped build a four-point cushion ahead of the Washington Capitals and Columbus Blue Jackets for the No. 3 spot in the Metropolitan Division — the last automatic playoff berth available — with one game to play before the three-week Olympic break.
They also drew within one point of the Penguins for second place in the division.
“Where we were in the standings, we would have taken it at the start of the year,” Barzal said. “Being two points [apart] in a really tight race… tonight was just massive. You’re playing a team that you’re right there with — down a goal, up a goal, down a goal. Just a great game.”
Even with the win, they were largely outplayed for the majority of the night, beginning with a first period in which they magically escaped with a 2-1 lead thanks to a late, 75-second explosion.
After Anthony Mantha finished a deft one-handed pass from Justin Brazeau to put the visitors up at the 12:04 mark, Horvat drew the Islanders level with a lunging backhander at the left post off a Barzal shot that caromed off the pads of Skinner.
With 2.3 seconds left, Matthew Schaefer nabbed the 16th of his superb rookie campaign when he clapped a one-timed slapper fizzing over the glove of Skinner.
The Penguins knotted it back up 3:52 into the second period when Tommy Novak sent a feed from behind the net to a wide-open Egor Chinakhov, who one-timed the chance home. At the 14:09 mark, Bryan Rust put Pittsburgh in front when, from below the goal line, he banked the puck off Ilya Sorokin and into the net.
“This was a game we had to be resilient,” head coach Patrick Roy said. “A game where we had to battle to come back, and that’s what we did.”
