In Elmont, the New York Islanders seemingly had their second straight win in the bag on Thursday night. Except the bag had a greasy bottom and the Nashville Predators found a way out with two goals in the third period to erase a 2-3 deficit and take a 4-3 win. 
Eeli Tolvanen with 12 seconds left on the game clock for the game-winner.
“Lately, we’ve been playing really good hockey,” Tolvanen said. “We were down seven minutes into the game, and it’s just something that there was no quit today. I felt like all four lines were playing really well, and it was just a matter of time we got those chances. Two nice goals in the third.”
The late game goal came after Nashville’s Yakov Trenin tied the match, 3-3, at 12:31 of the frame.
David Rittich made 18 saves in the Preds win.
“I give the Islanders credit, that was a hard-fought, physical game,” Nashville head coach John Hynes said. “I thought both teams played very well. But I think to be able to have that style of game, come from behind twice, down 3-2 with seven minutes left, to tie it and then find a way to win it, you have to be able to find ways to win on the road.
“It was a hard-fought game, tough environment to play in, and our guys stuck with it and got rewarded for it.”
Nashville improved to 15-10-1.
Ryan Johansen and Colton Sissons also scored for Nashville.
“We knew they were going to come out hard and super competitive. They’re still looking for their first win in their building here,” Sissons said. “I think we came pretty prepared for that. That was a back-and-forth match, but we remained tough and stuck together and hung in there.”
The Islanders had snapped an 11-game skid on Tuesday, but could not keep it going.
They have lost 12 of their last 13 games.
“We’ve had games in this building that we could’ve won,” New York’s Anders Lee said. “For whatever reason, we haven’t closed it out. There’s a lot of individual games you look at and how close they were, we come out on the wrong side, and it just happens to be that they’re strung together in this building.”
Austin Czarnik and Lee, scored for the Islanders.
Noah Dobson gave New York a 3-2 lead early in the third period before the Preds rally.
“I think we just played a pretty solid game and we were getting better and better,” Sissons said. “It was tough going down one, but we kind of rallied around that. We knew that we were still in the game and had all in the confidence in the world we could score one, score two and come back and win a hockey game.”
Semyon Varlamov made 25 saves in the Isles loss.
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