COLUMBUS, Ohio — Far too many times over the past few years, the Islanders have been in the same position the Blue Jackets were Saturday night: playing a four-point game, long before the end of the season, where it felt like their lives were on the line.
Rarely have they been in the other chair, but there they were Saturday. Columbus came into the evening six points behind the Islanders — the playoff team closest to them — with two games in hand.
A win wouldn’t eliminate the Blue Jackets, not quite, but surely a growing standings deficit the week of the trade deadline would point Columbus general manager Don Waddell in a certain direction.
Now, Waddell may be pointing just that way. His team tossed away a 2-0 lead in a game it was dominating through 30 minutes, and the Islanders walked out of Nationwide Arena with a 4-3 overtime victory on Simon Holmstrom’s game-winning goal that left the Blue Jackets seven points out of a playoff spot and gasping for air.
It was the second game of the road trip in which the Islanders trailed by two goals in the second period, and the second in which they quickly rendered that forgettable.
Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on consecutive shifts 22 seconds apart to tie the game just after the halfway point of the game, then Scott Mayfield made it 3-2 with his shot taking a hard left turn off Kirill Marchenko, hitting Zach Werenski, then crossing the goal line at 17:10 of the second.
Columbus came back down and re-tied it on Adam Fantilli’s deflection from Werenski to set up a 3-3 game entering the last 20 minutes.
And, just like two nights prior in Montreal, the Islanders played their best hockey in the third.
After struggling to do so for much of the night, they held the puck in the zone, had all four lines going and put some serious pressure on Jet Greaves.
Greaves, though, proved up to it, and the game wore into the last five minutes of regulation tied, then carried on into overtime.
In the extra period, the Islanders extended their perfect record in 3-on-3 play, with Holmstrom putting away Tony DeAngelo’s outlet pass to seal the win.
The Islanders had started this one slowly.
Their puck management was less than great and aside from Cal Ritchie’s line, there weren’t many chances to speak of.
Even Ilya Sorokin made a rare error, letting the puck trickle through him 2:30 into the game on Isac Lundeström’s tip from Dante Fabbro.
Mason Marchment, the villain last time these teams played, made it 2-0 early in the second off Charlie Coyle’s feed to the right circle that seemed to make its way through the Islanders’ defense in slow motion.
Lee and Pageau, who scored the tying and winning goals on Thursday in Montreal, pulled the Islanders back into the game by dropping all pretense and getting to the net.
Lee got onto Scott Mayfield’s rebound, then Pageau got onto his own 22 seconds later and a game in which the Isles had been getting worked suddenly belonged to anyone.
These Islanders don’t tend to let those opportunities go to waste.
They didn’t Saturday.
And they may have just pushed Columbus’ season to the brink.
