Islanders capitalize on Penguins missteps for Game 1 overtime win

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Facing the league’s best defensive team, the Pittsburgh Penguins came into Wednesday night’s playoff opener against the New York Islanders knowing they’d have to be patient. They talked about it all week in practice.

They couldn’t force things in the offensive zone. They needed to made prudent decisions with the puck.

They did a pretty good job of following that mantra until they didn’t.

And when they didn’t, the Islanders made them a stiff penalty.

Josh Bailey scored the winning goal less than five minutes into overtime, leading the Islanders to a 4-3 victory Wednesday night.

Game 2 is set for Friday night on Long Island.

The winning goal came after Kris Letang got caught up ice while the Penguins were making a line change behind him, and Mathew Barzal and Jordan Eberle took off on a two-on-one.

Barzal kept the puck himself and put on a stickhandling exhibition, eventually sending a backhand shot off the post. Bailey buried the rebound.

Goalie Matt Murray argued he was interfered with because Barzal was on top of him when the puck went in, but to no avail.

“It’s everything we talked about for the last couple of days: just making sure we manage the puck and we have situational awareness in mind,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “Late in shifts, especially when it’s a long change from the bench, you’ve got to make good decisions with the puck. If we had numbers and an opportunity for a potential scoring chance, I think that’s a calculated risk. I’m not sure we had the awareness that we needed in that situation.”

If there’s one thing the Penguins could be pleased with after a playoff-opening loss, it was their ability to battle back each of the first three times they fell behind by a goal.

Phil Kessel added another notch to his playoff resume when he beat goalie Robin Lehner from the slot to make it 1-1 in the first. Evgeni Malkin scored on a deflected power-play wrister to make it 2-2 in the second.

Justin Schultz scored on a one-timer from the left circle past a Jake Guentzel screen to make it 3-3 with 1 minute, 29 seconds to go.

A Penguins team that gave up tying goals in the final five minutes of regulation four times in a 13-game stretch late in the regular season had finally turned the tables.

“We battled back,” Schultz said. “It’s a tough building to play in. Their fans are on top of you. I like the way we battled back.”

Their defensive play, however, was sloppy, and they didn’t handle a surprisingly fierce Islanders forecheck all that well.

For example, the Islanders took a 3-2 lead on a Nick Leddy shot that knuckled past Murray with less than eight minutes left in regulation.

Leo Komarov set up the play by ripping a puck away from Olli Maatta and skidding a pass back to the point.

“I think we expected that,” Maatta said. “They play well. It’s a good team out there. It’s going to be a tough series.”

The Penguins also didn’t handle the first five minutes of the game well.

Splitting their time between Long Island and Brooklyn while they wait for a new arena at Belmont Park to be finished, the Islanders hadn’t played a playoff game at Nassau Coliseum since 2015. Their fans were starved for postseason hockey, and the Islanders seemed to feed off the emotion in the building.

Ex-Penguins winger Tom Kuhnhackl beat Murray 31 seconds in, but the goal was waved off after video review because winger Matt Martin was offside.

Eberle scored a goal that counted when he was left alone in front to slip in a rebound about a minute later.

“The building, it was loud,” Guentzel said. “It’s their home ice. You knew they were going to come out strong. Not the way we wanted to start, for sure. We’ve got to start better next game and go from there.”