*Photo from ABC News*
They needed a comeback, and they got one. Brock Nelson scored twice, Anders Lee had a two goal game, and the New York Islanders rallied to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 5-4 victory on Friday night on Long Island.
With the win, the Islanders snapped a 3 game losing streak, becoming tied with the Penguins for the two wild card spots in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. Lee and Nelson each had two goals and an assist, while Mathew Barzal had two assists to round out the multi point scorers.
After the game, Nelson said of the win that "It's been a while since we had a couple-goal deficits where we came back and won. Taking advantage of key moments, power play being one of them. That was huge."
It was Sidney Crosby who kicked off the scoring, giving the Penguins a 1-0 lead on his 25th goal of the season, with assists coming from Chad Ruhwedel and PO Joseph. At the 13:36 mark of the first, Lee scored to tie the game for the Islanders, making it 1-1 on his 20th goal of the season, with Barzal getting the lone assist.
Starting the second period scoring was Rickard Rakell, who gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead with Kris Letang and Jake Guentzel assisting. Jason Zucker scored to give the Penguins a 3-1 advantage before Nelson scored to cut the Islanders deficit to 3-2. Rakell then scored again to make it 4-2 before Lee scored with 28 seconds left in the period to make it 4-3 after two.
Kicking off the scoring in the 3rd period was Nelson, who tied the game 4-4 with his second goal of the game, this one coming on the power play with Lee and Noah Dobson assisting. Parise then scored his 15th goal of the season to break the tie and give the Islanders a 5-4 lead with 2:43 left in regulation, with assists from Nelson and Kyle Palmieri.
Parise said of the win and the standings change that "We all look at the standings. We knew the importance going into the game. We have teams that are climbing behind us with games in hand and we have teams we're trying to catch. There's just not a lot of room for error for us right now."
It was Ilya Sorokin who started for the Islanders, getting the win in net to improve to 18-17-5 in 42 games. Sorokin stopped 40 of the 44 shots the Penguins sent at him, which was good for a .909 save percentage.
Getting the start in goal for the Penguins was Casey DeSmith, who was unable to stop the comeback from the Islanders. DeSmith turned away 23 out of the 28 shots he saw from the Islanders, recording a .821 save percentage. His record now stands at 10-12-4 this season.
Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said that "Obviously the results are important, especially at this time of year. So, we want to get results. I'm disappointed that we didn't get it because I thought we played well enough to, but that's hockey. We have to regroup. We have an important one tomorrow night. We have to get ready."
Both teams play the second end of a back to back on Saturday evening. The Islanders travel to face the Boston Bruins, with Semyon Varlamov to start. Dustin Tokarski will start for the Penguins against the New Jersey Devils.
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