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PITTSBURGH (AP) — New York’s Josh Bailey took advantage of a sloppy giveaway by Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry, sending the puck into the wide-open net 51 seconds into the second overtime to give the Islanders a 3-2 victory in Game 5 on Monday night.
Jarry ventured out of the Pittsburgh net to handle a loose puck and instead fed it right to Bailey, who gave the Islanders a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with the easiest of his three goals of the playoffs.
Game 6 is in New York on Wednesday.
Ilya Sorokin stopped 48 shots — a franchise playoff record for a rookie goaltender — and kept the Islanders in the game during a regulation the Penguins controlled from nearly start to finish. Anthony Beauvillier scored in the first period on a brilliant rush and Jordan Eberle beat an out-of-position Jarry midway through the third period to pull New York even.
Evgeni Malkin scored his first postseason goal in more than two years for the Penguins. Bryan Rust added his second of the series. Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby picked up assist on Rust’s tally to move past Hall of Famer Brett Hull and into seventh-place on the NHL’s career playoff scoring list.
Jarry, in his first true playoff run with the Penguins, finished with 25 saves but looked shaky at times and his inexcusable turnover leaves Pittsburgh in danger of going one-and-done in the playoffs for the third straight year.
Pittsburgh basically no-showed in Game 4 on Saturday as the Islanders drilled them in a 4-1 victory to even the series. The Penguins have faltered when tested in the playoffs in recent years, getting swept by New York in 2019 and stunned by Montreal in the qualifying round last summer.
The swagger they lacked on Long Island returned back home at half-capacity PPG Paints Arena. Pittsburgh dominated regulation, sending wave after wave at Sorokin only to have the 25-year-old Russian keep them at bay.
Malkin, playing on an achy right knee that forced him to miss six weeks during the regular season, ended a 10-game postseason scoring drought when he zipped a wrist shot from the left circle over Sorokin’s right shoulder 8:20 into the first period. Pittsburgh didn’t let up after gaining the early lead, testing Sorokin repeatedly.
Maybe all that action at the other end didn’t allow Jarry to get into a flow. He surrendered a goal to Beauvillier in the final seconds of the first period after Beauvillier spun around Penguins forward Jake Guentzel on his way to the net.
The score hardly seemed to dull Pittsburgh’s momentum. The Penguins outshot New York 20-4 in the second period alone, taking the lead 7:37 into the period on Rust’s long shot from outside the right circle.
Their season teetering, the Islanders didn’t exactly respond emphatically. New York spent the early stages of the third buried in its own end and didn’t muster a single shot for the first 8:50 period. When the Islanders did finally get it near Jarry, they made it count.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau stripped Penguin defenseman Brian Dumolin behind the Pittsburgh net and slipped it to Leo Komarov. Komarov found Eberle all alone in front of an open net to make it 2-2 and set up another dramatic finish in a series where four of the five games have been decided by a single goal.
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Will Graves, The Associated Press