This was exactly the offensive outburst the Islanders needed, at the exact time they needed it.
The 5-4 win over the Golden Knights on Tuesday night at UBS, with Emil Heineman netting the shootout winner, was not so much about Jean-Gabriel Pageau returning to the fold, though that certainly played a role in the Islanders’ fight back from a 2-0 deficit.
Pageau’s newly constructed line with Mat Barzal and Anders Lee was, in fact, the only one not to score for the Islanders, though that is no indictment of their efforts.
Bo Horvat’s two-goal performance constituted his best game in the last few weeks. It was also the night where Simon Holmstrom broke a goal drought that had gone on 14 games and another night in which the fourth line contributed at a high level.
Matthew Schaefer, after a tough weekend in Florida, was back looking like himself again, too — up ice on nearly every shift, dancing at the blue line, facilitating opportunities.
The Islanders’ resilience was there, too, after Pavel Dorofeyev tied the game late in regulation to send the game to the extra period.
In other words, this was not, as it has too often been lately, Ilya Sorokin against the world.
Sorokin, instead, had to overcome a shaky first period in which his rebound control was off. So too did the Islanders, who rose to the occasion.
The Knights did not make it easy, with Ivan Barbashev erasing a 3-2 Islanders lead just 1:27 into the third by diving past Schaefer to chip the puck past Ilya Sorokin.
But just two games after Cal Ritchie scored a game-winner on the power play in Tampa, a five-on-four unit that came into the day ranked 30th in the league coming into the day pulled a rabbit out of its hat again.
After Dorofeyev hooked Anthony Duclair at 8:44 on the third, the Islanders buzzed around Carter Hart’s crease until Bo Horvat finally broke through with Barzal feeding him a one-timer at 10:15 of the period for his second goal of the night.
The Knights got a lifeline with 2:21 to go, though, when Adam Pelech took a delay of game call. The Islanders had absorbed pressure since taking the lead, but it was now a matter of Sorokin and of the penalty kill.
Sorokin had started the night shaky. Here, he was note-perfect — denying a series of chances at the crease to help kill off the penalty.
That, however, was for naught. Instead of tying it at five-on-four, the Knights did so at six-on-five, with Dorofeyev stuffing in Mitch Marner’s rebound with 12 seconds to go.
The Islanders’ penalty kill came up big again in overtime after Kyle MacLean was called for a high stick with three seconds left in regulation.
This time, they were not left hanging, as Sorokin bested Carter Hart in the skills competition.
Horvat, who had struggled to get going offensively over the weekend, got things started for the Islanders at four-on-four late in the first period, wiring a one-timer from Ryan Pulock to cut into a 2-0 Vegas lead.
Marc Gatcomb, recipient of another game in the lineup with Max Tsyplakov coming out instead for Pageau, made good on that decision at 3:56 of the second when he put in Casey Cizikas’ cross-crease feed to tie the game.
Ten minutes later, Cal Ritchie threaded a feed through traffic to Simon Holmstrom on the rush, and the Swede lasered in a wrist shot for the lead.
Sorokin had recovered his game by then, and stood up to pressure throughout the last two periods, but had misplaced rebounds from Jack Eichel and Kaeden Korczak in the first period, handing open nets to Noah Hanifin and Mitch Marner, respectively.
Lately, it has felt as though the goaltending needs to be near perfect for the Islanders to take two points.
That it wasn’t Tuesday, and that the Islanders were just fine anyway, might be the most positive development from the evening.
