Pittsburgh: Kyle Okposo scored in the third round of the shoot-out, sending the New York Islanders to a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday.
Sidney Crosby and New York’s Frans Nielsen scored in the second round and Islanders goaltender Chad Johnson stopped Brandon Sutter. Okposo deked to his forehand, slipping a shot that hit off Marc-Andre Fleury’s pad and into the net for the win.
Fleury, who was seeking his 300th career win, had 29 saves.
Matt Martin, Nikolay Kulemin and Ryan Strome scored in an impressive flurry in the first, helping the Islanders to the early lead.
The Islanders have won seven of eight. Patric Hornqvist forced overtime with his 10th goal of the year for the Penguins, who had won three in a row.
Kris Letang nearly ended it in overtime for Pittsburgh, but Johnny Boychuk stopped the wraparound attempt when he got his stick on the puck before it crossed the goal line. New York carried a 4-3 lead into the third period, but Hornqvist tied it with seven minutes left, finishing a one-timer from Evgeni Malkin. Casey Cizikas nearly put the Islanders ahead, but his one-time redirect hit the post to the right of Fleury. The re-tooled Islanders entered with their best start since the 1987-88 season.
The Penguins handed the Islanders their first loss of the season last month during the initial meeting between the teams in Pittsburgh. In that game, New York, which won its first four games of the season, held an early lead before Pittsburgh rallied for a two-goal victory.
The Penguins played their first game without veteran winger Pascal Dupuis, who will miss the rest of the season after blood clots were found in his lungs.
Sutter opened the scoring just 1:13 into the game, but the Islanders controlled the next two periods as Pittsburgh appeared sluggish without its emotional leader, twice falling behind by two goals. The Islanders, who allowed the first goal for the fourth straight game, scored three times in 1:35, taking command midway through the first. Martin started the surge, beating Fleury with a short-side wrist shot during a rush down the left wing. Kulemin followed 29 seconds later, forcing a Paul Martin turnover at the blue line before working past Letang and beating Fleury with a wrist shot from the slot. Thomas Hickey’s shot from the point deflected off Strome’s skate, making it 3-1.
Pittsburgh pulled within one when Comeau, while circling around the net, threw a centering pass in front that hit Matt Martin’s skate and trickled across the goal line. Nick Leddy briefly reclaimed the Islanders’ two-goal lead at 5:42 of the second with a one-timer from the faceoff dot, but Spaling got it back when he tapped a rebound behind Johnson.
Agencies
