Pittsburgh, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - Kyle Okposo scored the game winner in the shootout to lift the New York Islanders to a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in a thrilling back-and-forth affair.
After each of the first two shooters missed, Sidney Crosby cut across the slot from the left side, made a head fake and roofed a backhander over Chad Johnson, but Frans Nielsen answered back on a similar move for the Islanders.
Okposo followed a Brandon Sutter miss with a backhand-forehand move past Marc- Andre Fleury to seal the win.
Ryan Strome had a goal and two assists, while Nick Leddy, Matt Martin and Nikolay Kulemin also scored for the Isles, who have won seven of their last eight games and crept within two points of first-place Pittsburgh in the Metropolitan Division.
"We were resilient," Islanders head coach Jack Capuano said. "We came back and had some good chances. We stayed at it."
Johnson stopped 26-of-30 shots in the victory.
Nick Spaling, Blake Comeau, and Sutter lit the lamp, Patric Hornqvist tallied a goal and an assist and Evgeni Malkin supplied two helpers for the Penguins, who entered the game with wins in 10 of their last 11 games.
"We just didn't play a full 60 minutes," Crosby said. "We didn't really deserve to win the game."
Fleury made 31 saves in defeat.
The Penguins wasted no time getting on the board. Sutter tipped in Paul Martin's shot from the point only 1:13 into the game.
New York recovered and eventually went ahead by a 3-1 count with three goals in a 1:35 span during the first period.
Martin tied the game after his quick low shot from the left circle beat Fleury at 8:18. Kulemin raced up the right side, cut across the slot and snapped a shot into the net 29 seconds later and Strome redirected Thomas Hickey's shot from the blue line for a 3-1 lead with 10:07 remaining in the opening stanza.
Comeau drove around the back of the net and flicked a backhander off a defender in front past Johnson for a 3-2 with 3:26 to play in the first.
The Islanders increased their lead to 4-2 nearly six minutes into the middle frame after Leddy beat Fleury with a high wrister from the left circle.
Spaling wristed home a rebound three minutes later to keep it a one-goal game.
Malkin skated down the right side, pulled up at the circle and dished a pass to Hornqvist, whose wrister from the slot made it a 4-4 game with seven minutes remaining.
Nearly two minutes into the extra session, Hornqvist's shot missed the net and caromed off the boards. Letang corralled the puck and sent to the goal, but Islanders defenseman Johnny Boychuk kept it out with a stick save at the goal line.
Game Notes
Islanders defenseman Calvin de Haan left the game late in the third after awkwardly crashing into the boards ... New York improved to 7-0-0 this season when leading after two periods ... The Islanders were unsuccessful on the game's lone power play.
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