The Islanders finished their regular season by throwing it back to the preseason.
Game 82 against the Penguins meant nothing and both sides treated it as such, doing their best not to get hurt in a 5-4 Islanders victory that featured the drama of Ilya Sorokin stopping a Sidney Crosby penalty shot with under 30 seconds left.
As for the main goal of the night, however, the Islanders fell short as Jean-Gabriel Pageau left the game midway through the first period and did not return.
Whether that was merely out of caution or Pageau suffered a more serious injury isn’t yet known, but the potential of losing their third-line center for the first round when Noah Dobson’s status is already a question mark makes this night a loss for the Islanders, no matter the score.
The teams did at least combine to make it an entertaining exhibition, as they entered the third period tied at three following Kyle Palmieri’s right-circle one-timer on the power play late in the second.
After the Penguins lost a challenge on that goal, the Islanders entered the third on another power play and quickly converted, taking a 4-3 lead courtesy of Samuel Bolduc’s one-timer from the same spot.
That was not the end of the back-and-forth that had gone on all night as Jeff Carter tied the game with a power-play deflection from Crosby with just under 10 minutes to go.
Simon Holmstrom, though, had one more twist to orchestrate in the night, lifting one from below the left faceoff dot for a 5-4 lead at the 14:25 mark.
So too did Sorokin after Crosby was awarded a penalty shot with 29 seconds left, diving to stop the superstar with his glove.
Anders Lee, Mat Barzal, Hudson Fasching and Pierre Engvall were held out of the lineup for the Islanders — Lee for personal reasons and the other three for maintenance — as the home side went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the first time all year.
Bolduc and Oliver Wahlstrom both rejoined the lineup for the first time since Jan. 27 and Feb. 24, respectively, and Ruslan Iskhakov was called up from AHL Bridgeport to make his NHL debut.
The 5-foot-8 Russian had earned the chance to show what he could do in the NHL with an All-Star campaign in the minors in which he put up a second-straight season of 50 points.
The skinny 23-year-old whose contract expires following this season got knocked off the puck one too many times, but tallied a point with a secondary assist on Bolduc’s goal.
Early in the night, the game seesawed back and forth, with the Islanders leading 1-0 before the Penguins led 2-1 and 3-2, with a pair of goals overturned on review mixed in for good measure before Valtteri Puustinen recovered a loose puck in the slot and turned it into the fifth goal of the night between the two sides at 14:37 of the second.
By then it was clear that this game was in essence a formality.
Now the Islanders are where they spent the night wanting to be.
On to Carolina.
