New York’s Bo Horvat, whose turnovers in the second period led to a pair of goals by the St. Louis Blues, capped the Islanders’ comeback by scoring the tiebreaking goal early in the third period of Tuesday night’s 4-2 win in Elmont, N.Y.
Horvat’s first shot glanced off the pads of Blues goalie Joel Hofer, but the center collected the rebound and wrapped a shot into the open corner of the net 55 seconds into the third.
The red-hot Kyle Palmieri began the comeback by scoring with 7:28 left in the second before Jean-Gabriel Pageau tied the score a little more than five minutes later for the Islanders, who tied a season high with their fourth straight win and moved within four points of the idle Philadelphia Flyers in the race for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
Mathew Barzal added an empty-netter with 30.5 seconds left for New York, which is also four points behind the Detroit Red Wings and Tampa Bay Lightning, who are tied for the Eastern Conference’s wild-card spots.
Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin made 19 saves.
Alexey Toropchenko and Jordan Kyrou scored in the second for the Blues, who had a two-game winning streak snapped. Hofer made 29 saves for St. Louis, which entered Tuesday five points behind the Los Angeles Kings and Nashville Predators in the race for the Western Conference wild-card spots.
The Islanders outshot the Blues 10-8 in a scoreless first before St. Louis took advantage of Horvat’s turnovers in the first half of the second.
Horvat, pressured along the boards in the Blues’ zone by Brayden Schenn, tried backhanding the puck, but it sailed to Jake Neighbours, who then dished to Toropchenko in the neutral zone. Toropchenko shuffled the puck for a few steps before sniping a shot over Sorokin’s glove at the 1:21 mark.
The Blues doubled the lead a little more than seven minutes later. Defenseman Marco Scandella’s shot glanced off Horvat, but he couldn’t control the puck. Brandon Saad grabbed it and shoveled a pass to Kyrou, who tucked a shot under the glove hand of a sprawling Sorokin with 11:30 left.
Palmieri, who collected a natural hat trick in the first period of Saturday’s 5-1 win over the visiting Boston Bruins, began the Islanders’ comeback 4:02 later when he dragged the puck across the crease before poking it into the wide open corner of the net.
With 2:13 left in the period, Sebastian Aho’s shot from the blue line bounced to Pageau, who buried a shot past Hofer’s stick to tie it at 2-2.
–Field Level Media
