On Long Island, the New York Islanders snapped an ugly five-game skid with a 4-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.
Jordan Eberle had two goals for the New York Islanders
Anders Lee potted a power play goal with less than three minutes on the regulation clock for the game-winner.
“We were just able to get a good bounce from [Pulock’s] shot,” Lee said. “Big one for us there. … Tonight wasn’t the prettiest game or the best game we’ve played even recently, but it doesn’t matter. We found a way tonight, and that’s kind of really all that matters.”
New York rallied from a 2-3 deficit in the third period.
Cal Clutterbuck tied the game at 3-3.
“Probably like a starving person needing food, that’s probably how bad we needed it,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “We needed it for confidence, we needed it to get ourselves back in the race; we’ve played a few less games. We found a way to battle again.”
Semyon Varlamov made 28 saves for the win.
Jake Guentzel, Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Evgeni Malkin were the Pens strikers.
“I don’t think you think too much into [the standings], but I think you know you’ve got to start getting points because they’re so hard to come by in this division,” Guentzel said. “We’ve seen a lot of games that are close, so we’ve just got to make sure we’re getting points any way we can, and it starts now. We’ve just got to make sure next game (at the Islanders again next Thursday) we try and get two points.”
Pittsburgh dropped to 5-5-1.
“It would’ve been better with the two points at the end of the game, but I think [Guentzel] saw me in a good position out there and we played fast,” Joseph said. “Good things happen when you do the right things.”
The Isles, who were coming off a stretch of COVID19 protocol, got two goals from Jordan Eberle.
“They scored a goal at the end of the second period, and that’s sort of a little bit of a kick in the teeth,” Trotz said. “They take the lead, but I liked our response after the goal. I just thought our bench went from there.” 
Tristan Jarry made 22 saves in the loss.
“I thought there was a lot of positives to take from it,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “I thought for the most part our 5-on-5 play was pretty strong. I thought we got better as the game went on; we controlled a lot of the third period. We fought back from a deficit. There was a lot to like about our overall game.
“We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t give our opponents easy opportunities to score by making sure we have an awareness, and when we also have to have an awareness late in the shifts that we simplify our game, get pucks deep and make sure that we get the line changes that we need so we can continue to play the game that we want to play.”
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