On Tuesday night, the New York Islanders picked the most opportune time possible to play one of their best third periods of the season and finally win the second game of a back-to-back set.
Whether the Islanders can continue a timely winning streak on Thursday night might determine whether their season continues beyond mid-April.
New York will look to continue its last-ditch climb into the playoff race when it visits the Columbus Blue Jackets in a battle of Metropolitan Division rivals.
The Islanders were off Wednesday after scoring twice in the third period on Tuesday night to edge the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 2-1. The Blue Jackets haven’t played since Monday, when they continued a four-game homestand by upsetting the Colorado Avalanche 4-1.
The third-period comeback capped a best-case scenario for the Islanders (33-27-15, 81 points), who closed within one point of the Capitals and Detroit Red Wings in the race for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference by virtue of Washington’s 6-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The Capitals (36-28-10) officially occupy the second wild card because they have a game in hand on the Red Wings (37-30-8).
The Islanders are also two points behind the Philadelphia Flyers (36-29-11, 83 points) in the race for third place in the Metropolitan. New York has a game in hand on Philadelphia.
The Islanders’ path to the playoffs looked much steeper when they trailed 1-0 after two periods on Tuesday against the lottery-bound Blackhawks.
But Bo Horvat tied the game 1:33 into the third and Simon Holmstrom scored at the 9:25 mark for New York, which limited the Blackhawks to just five shots in the final frame even though Chicago had a power-play opportunity before playing six-on-five for most of the last two minutes.
The victory marked just the third this season where the Islanders have won when trailing after two periods (3-23-2) and it was the first time they’ve won the second game of a back-to-back set (1-6-3). New York beat the Flyers 4-3 in overtime on Monday.
“I’m not going to say it was a great win — I’m also going to say it was a great game,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said of Tuesday’s performance. “That’s the type of hockey we need to play if we want to give ourselves a chance to make the playoffs.”
The Blue Jackets (25-38-12, 62 points), who have the fewest points in the Eastern Conference, will miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season. But Columbus played spoiler for a second straight game on Monday, when it scored three times in a span of less than nine minutes in the second period against the playoff-bound Avalanche.
Two nights earlier, the Blue Jackets damaged the Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff hopes by overcoming a two-goal, third-period deficit before earning a 4-3 win in a shootout. The Penguins are three points behind the Capitals and Red Wings in the race for the second wild card.
The Blue Jackets haven’t won three straight games since a three-game run from March 11-16, 2022.
“We keep reinforcing winning habits and what needs to be done consistently to win a hockey game in the National Hockey League,” Blue Jackets first-year coach Pascal Vincent said. “And the last two games, we saw a team that is executing those habits.”
–Field Level Media
