Islanders rally to defeat Penguins for 2nd time in 4 days

PITTSBURGH --Bo Horvat and Anders Lee scored 1:41 apart in the third period, and the New York Islanders rallied past the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second time in four days, 4-2 at PPG Paints Arena on Monday.

Horvat tied it 2-2 at 8:34 when he scored from a sharp angle below the right circle after Hudson Fasching jumped up to keep the puck in at the blue line.
Lee then put the Islanders in front 3-2 at 10:15, receiving a pass from Matt Martin on his backhand and tucking the puck inside the right post with his forehand. The play started after Tristan Jarry passed the puck to Horvat behind the net.
"This team, say whatever you want about us, but we're going to battle and we're going to fight until the end," Lee said. "That's a full team win. Really proud of our guys tonight. It could've gone another way, and we pushed through. We took control and we were able to come out with just a big win."

Brock Nelson scored his second of the game into an empty net with 25 seconds left for the 4-2 final.
"Hockey's a game of momentum," Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. "I thought we pushed back. We had a lot of quality looks. … Instead of finding a way to win, we found a way to lose."
Ilya Sorokin made 44 saves for the Islanders (29-24-7), who also came back from down one in the third to defeat the Penguins 5-4 at home on Friday.
New York was playing its first game without forward Mathew Barzal, who is out week to week with a lower-body injury.
"We needed our goalie to be good. He was," Islanders coach Lane Lambert said. "We have a great rivalry with this team. The way the game ended the other night in New York, I expected this to be a hard-fought game. We're both fighting for points."
Jake Guentzel and Jason Zucker scored for the Penguins (27-20-9), who have lost three in a row. Jarry made 28 saves in his return after missing nine games with an upper-body injury.
"It's obviously tough this time of year to come back in," Jarry said. "You don't have many practices, you don't have many opportunities to skate, so I think that's the toughest thing is just getting back into game action. It's always tough when you've almost had two months off."

Guentzel put the Penguins in front 1-0 at 6:12 of the first period, tapping the puck into an open net at the left post after Sidney Crosby's backhand pass deflected off the stick of Horvat.
Nelson tied it 1-1 at 5:19 of the second period, electing to shoot the puck blocker side from the right circle on a 2-on-1 for his 25th goal of the season.
Zucker responded for the Penguins on a power play to make it 2-1 at 12:26. He banked a shot off Sorokin from the right post after Jeff Petry's slap shot ricocheted to him off the crossbar.
Kris Letang came close to extending the lead with a backhand into a seemingly open net at 17:15, but Sorokin reached back with his stick to make a highlight-reel save.
"We had a couple of chances to extend the lead, we didn't," Crosby said. "You're one mistake away from it being a tie game and momentum shifting. Couldn't find a way to build on the lead. … It's not ideal when you lose games and you have leads. The only way out of it is to find a way to win one."

New York was outshot 37-24 in the first two periods before scoring three times in the third.
"Belief. We believe we have done it before and we believed we could do it again," Horvat said. "Especially in the second half of that second period, we were starting to come. We were starting to gain momentum. I think it just carried on to the third period there."
NOTES:The Penguins are 0-3-0 against the Islanders this season and 0-6-3 in their past nine games against teams from the Metropolitan Division. … Islanders forward Arnaud Durandeau had four shots, two hits and one block in 14:09 of ice time in his NHL debut after being recalled from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League on an emergency basis on Sunday. … Jarry previously missed seven games with a lower-body injury he sustained in the Winter Classic against the Boston Bruins on Jan. 2. He returned for two games before sustaining the upper-body injury against the New Jersey Devils on Jan. 22.