Islanders score 4 in 3rd, rally past Penguins

PITTSBURGH -- Kyle Palmieri had a goal and two assists and Pierre Engvall scored the go-ahead goal at 13:08 of the third period for the New York Islanders, who rallied from down two in the third for a 4-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday.

Engvall beat Pittsburgh defenseman Ryan Graves to a loose puck in the left face-off circle for a wrist shot, giving New York a 3-2 lead before Simon Holmstrom scored an empty-net goal at 18:28 for the 4-2 final.

Noah Dobson had a goal and an assist, and Ilya Sorokin made 20 saves for the Islanders (31-28-8), who have won two in a row and are three points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

New York also trailed 2-0 entering the third period of a 4-2 win against the Florida Panthers on Sunday.

“I think coming back from down 2-0 shows a lot of character,” Engvall said. “We’ve done it just a game ago. Brings the confidence up. ... We’re confident. We just kept going.”

Sidney Crosby scored to push his point streak to five games (eight points; five goals, three assists), and Joona Koppanen scored his first NHL goal for the Penguins (28-32-10), who had matched a season-high with four straight wins. Tristan Jarry made 34 saves.

Pittsburgh trails Montreal by seven points and has played three more games.

“I thought the first two periods were pretty solid,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “We just didn't push back. We didn't push back hard enough. We didn’t play the right way. We beat ourselves in so many ways in the third period.”

Palmieri cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 2-1 on a breakaway 17 seconds into the third period with his 21st goal, ending a five-game point drought. His wrist shot hit the right post, bounced back and went in off Jarry.

“Both nights, I don’t think we felt terrible about our game,” Palmieri said. “We just had to find a way to make some more plays offensively and find a way to bury them. I think, going into the third, we knew we were going to get some chances, and we were going to put our push on.”

Dobson then dove for a backhand near the crease on a rebound off a shot from Bo Horvat, tying it 2-2 at 5:34.

“We just need to be resilient,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “That’s who this group is. They’re very resilient. I mean, it’s a great group. They care. They want to win. They came into that third period playing the exact same way.”

Koppanen put the Penguins ahead 1-0 on their first shot on goal at 4:40 of the first period, deflecting a shot from Vladislav Kolyachonok. The forward made his season debut after being emergency recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League.

Crosby made it 2-0 at 19:45, chipping a loose puck in the right face-off circle through traffic for his 24th goal this season and fifth in five games. It was upheld after the Islanders challenged for goalie interference.

“We just beat ourselves,” Crosby said. “We made some mistakes. Obviously, they’re going to push. It’s 2-0. But there just wasn’t a lot of push back.”

Jarry lost for the first time in five starts since being recalled March 3 from his second stint this season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

“I think they just kept playing the same game,” Jarry said. “They were even-keeled the whole game. They were defending hard. And I think they were just putting a lot of pucks on net. Their game never really changed. And I think they just stuck to it longer than we did.”

NOTES: The Islanders won consecutive games after trailing by multiple goals in the third period the fourth time in their history, tying the Detroit Red Wings for the most in NHL history. ... Crosby leads the Penguins with 74 points (24 goals, 50 assists) and, because he can play a maximum of 80 games, is six points from clinching a 20th season averaging at least a point per game, which would put him ahead of Wayne Gretzky (19) for the most in NHL history. He reached 1,670 points (616 goals, 1,054 assists), passing Gretzky (1,669 points with the Edmonton Oilers) for the fourth-most with a single franchise. ... New York defenseman Alexander Romanov did not play because of an illness. He was replaced on the top defense pair by Adam Pelech, who had five shots and one block in his return from missing Sunday because of a lower-body injury.