Lee inspires Islanders to Game 4 win against Hurricanes

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Anders Lee doesn’t want the work to end, so he went out and worked.

His teammates followed and, in the process, kept the New York Islanders’ season alive.

The Islanders captain set the tone from the drop of the puck in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round and didn’t stop until Mathew Barzal scored the winning goal against the Carolina Hurricanes at 1:24 of the second overtime in a 3-2 victory at UBS Arena on Saturday, extending the best-of-7 series at least one more game.

“The season’s on the line,” Lee said. “We laid it all out there and we got that moment tonight and we can enjoy it for a little bit. We have the opportunity now and earned ourselves a couple more days of work.”

The moment came when Barzal tipped a shot by defenseman Robert Bortuzzo past Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen. It was Barzal’s second goal of the game and the second overtime goal of his career in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The series returns to Raleigh, North Carolina, for Game 5 at PNC Arena on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; TBS, MAX, BSSO, MSGSN), and the Islanders have another shot to extend the series and put a further seed of doubt into the minds of the Hurricanes.

It’s all the Islanders wanted: another chance.

The first four games have all been close. Minus the empty-net goal scored in each of the first two, every game has been a one-goal affair.

The margins have been so slim.

“We talked about it before, it’s tough to win four games in a row on someone, especially when the games are even like they are,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It’s not like we were dominating the game. They could have went either way in all three, just like tonight could have went the other way. We expected it to be a long series.”

Lee clearly wants to make it as long as possible. He was all over the ice Saturday, leading the charge that was followed by each of the Islanders’ big-name players.

He had an assist on the power-play goal by Jean-Gabriel Pageau that made it 2-1 Islanders at 1:38 of the third period. He played a total of 19:45 with nine shot attempts, three shots on goal and a blocked shot.

“He’s a competitor,” Pageau said. “He’s leading us, not only in the locker room, but I think on the ice. His work ethic; that’s contagious. You see how much it meant to him.

“When you see a player working that hard, you just want to do the same.”

To a player, the Islanders did the same.

Barzal scored his first two goals of the series, including a brilliant individual effort at 10:10 of the second period, tying the game 1-1.

Noah Dobson, New York's best defenseman, played 32:55, more than any other skater on either team.

Goalie Semyon Varlamov, the hard-luck loser in each of the first two games before being replaced by Ilya Sorokin as the starter in Game 3, made 42 saves. He stopped a shot by Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the knob of his stick at 5:10 of the first overtime, inspiring the crowd to chant his name.

“If that goes in, we are having a different conversation right now,” Brind’Amour said.

Instead, Barzal’s shot went in a little more than 16 minutes of game play later, set up by the unlikeliest of heroes.

Bortuzzo had taken a hooking penalty at 13:34 of the third and was wearing the goat horns. Carolina’s Stefan Noesen scored 34 seconds later to tie it 2-2.

But Bortuzzo, who was traded to the Islanders from the St. Louis Blues in December, kept plugging away, believing his teammates would give him a shot at redemption.

“There’s a ton of character here,” said Bortuzzo, who earned his first point with the Islanders by getting the primary assist on the winner. “It’s the first thing I noticed when I got here, character people, character guys who have a ton of appreciation for what this fan base does for us, and weren’t going to go down without a fight. Now, we are in a fight.”

As Lee said, there is a moment to savor the win in Game 4, but there is more work to do.

Three days from now, the season will be on the line again. The Islanders will have to scratch and claw for every inch of ice one more time.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a series where the checking is this tight, on both sides really,” Barzal said. “It’s on another level right now.”

If the Islanders can find a way to win again, they will take another step toward becoming the fifth team in the history of best-of-7 playoff series to advance after losing the first three games.

This all Lee wanted, and it’s all his fiery coach, Patrick Roy, could hope to see.

“You have no idea how proud I am of this group,” Roy said. “They came out and played hard. We stayed calm, we stayed focused. Our mindset was really good and the guys were determined to find a way to win this hockey game.”

And a way to work for at least three more days.