The New York Islanders’ Josh Bailey ended a see saw match with the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday when he scored just scored 32 seconds into overtime to send the Isles to a 4-3 win.
John Tavares set up the winner on a steal.
“That’s all him,” Bailey said of Tavares. “[Nick Leddy] and I just kind of sat back and watched and let him do his thing. He’s earned that respect. You don’t really need to get in there and help him out right away; you just kind of sit back, wait for your opening, and you know he’s going to find you just like he did.”
Thomas Greiss made 35 saves to pick up the win.
Mathew Barzal, Johnny Boychuk and Joshua Ho-Sang scored regulation goals for the Islanders.
“I like the last eighth [of the season] more than the first eighth,” Isles head coach Doug Weight said. “I think we’re putting together more shifts, more consistency, playing the way we want to play more than we were early.
“I think if we keep playing better and better hockey, we’re going to win more than we lose and stop doing the 1-1 and then 2-1 and 1-1-1. We want to be elite. We believe in our team and we believe in challenging success to get better. I’m relatively happy and excited the way we’re going.”
The Flyers, who are 0-3-3 in their last six, got goals from Taylor Leier, Michael Raffl and Jakub Voracek.
“We made a mistake in overtime tonight, we know that,” Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said. “Other than that, I thought we played a [heck] of a road game on a back-to-back. We built through the night. Our third period was really good in terms of playing a sixth period in two nights against a fresh team.
“It stinks to work real hard to earn that point, and then we gave it away a little bit too easily, so that’s the part that hurts a little bit. But in terms of our game tonight, I’m not looking for little parts, I’m looking for growth in all the areas. Really tonight, I wanted to look for a true test of kind of the character of this team was. Our team answered. They played a [heck] of a character game.”
[WATCH:Â All Flyers vs. Islanders highlights]
Brian Elliott made 35 saves in taking the loss.
“Very disappointing. To push the game to overtime, we had the lead two times in the game … some untimely mistakes. The PK’s got to be better,” the Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds said after the game.
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