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Nobody said it outright in the lead up to the first of a back-to-back, home-and-home matchup with the Penguins on Saturday, but winning this set of games — or at least avoiding a sweep — was as essential a task as the Islanders have faced all season.
For weeks now, the Islanders have hung around on the periphery of the playoff race, too far back to really be a factor, but close enough that a three-game winning streak could in theory vault them above the cutline.
If they’d lost both games to the Penguins, though?
Well, Pittsburgh came into Saturday four points ahead of the Islanders and a point behind Ottawa, which occupied the last playoff spot.
You can do the math on how it would have looked had the Islanders lost a pair of four-point games.
Whether or not they can do more than keep the race at a stasis remains to be seen until Sunday’s match in Pittsburgh.
But the Islanders at least ensured that they will keep on hanging around in this race with a 6-3 win over the Penguins in the home leg of the back-to-back.
That did not come so easily after a 4-1 lead turned to 4-3 heading into the third, with the Islanders looking to be in real danger of blowing another game in a season full of should-have-been.
The game seemed to be trending toward fireworks in one direction or the other.
But the Islanders — who quietly have not blown a lead in exactly a month — did not cede to the habits that haunted them in October and November.
Instead, they shut the game down, keeping up the physical play they’d sustained throughout and turning the match into a low-event slog.
This match could be framed as the Islanders’ formerly injured stars finally looking like themselves, with Anthony Duclair scoring and Mathew Barzal getting his first five-on-five point of the season with a beauty of a first-period assist to Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
The more accurate way to do so, however, would be in terms of the intensity and edge that has been lacking for much of the season, being very much present.
It was fitting, then, that Casey Cizikas — who has defined the team’s battle level for much of the past decade — sealed the win with a goal off the rush with 5:17 to go in regulation, his second goal of the game after being elevated to Bo Horvat’s line in place of Max Tsyplakov during the second period after the latter took consecutive offensive zone penalties.
For Cizikas, whose start to the year has been rough, the two goals marked a doubling of his point tally so far this season.
For the Islanders, they sealed a desperately-needed result, with Anders Lee’s empty-netter serving as confirmation.
A four-minute flurry of goals early in the second from Duclair, Lee and Cizikas appeared to have broken open a 1-1 tie.
But Noel Acciari’s goal just 13 seconds after a Pittsburgh power play ended, followed by Rickard Rakell’s tip off Matt Grzelcyk’s shot with just four seconds to go in the second period pulled Pittsburgh back within 4-3.
After what appeared to be an opening goal from Brock Nelson was wiped off due to goaltender interference 4:59 into the match, the Islanders responded well, putting in the sort of early pressure that was nonexistent five days prior in an embarrassing 7-1 loss to the Sabres.
That paid off when Barzal fed Pageau at the backdoor to put the Islanders ahead at the 14:47 mark on No. 13’s first five-on-five point of the season, and a beauty at that.
That lead, however, was quickly frittered away following a Cizikas penalty for interference, with Michael Bunting converting on the ensuing Pittsburgh power play.
Even with two points, the lack of progress on special teams — the power play went scoreless and struggled to enter the zone at times — is reason to think this is more mirage than genuine foundation.
The Islanders, of course, are in such a position that just getting two points feels like reason to celebrate — and to hope otherwise.
