ST. LOUIS — The Islanders’ best game of this four-game trip required the largest lift to turn into two points.
At the end of it, though, Mat Barzal’s game-winner had given Brayden Schenn and his new club a 4-3 overtime win over the Blues in his first game back at the Enterprise Center and secured a vital two points after roaring back from down 3-0 in an impressive show of resilience.
“It’s a team built on culture and character and you can definitely tell,” said Schenn, who reacted emotionally to a first-period tribute video from the Blues, whom he’d captained until just four days ago. “They have a no-quit attitude in this room.”
While the Islanders had never looked out of this one — save perhaps for the brief minute where the score was 4-0 before Patrick Roy won a challenge for offside — it did very much appear that this would be a night that they’d end up on the wrong end, despite having controlled the game.
JG Pageau creaked the door open, though, by getting on Matthew Schaefer’s rebound late in the second to cut a 3-0 deficit to 3-1. Then, 5:03 into the third, Pavel Buchnevich’s high stick drew blood on Cal Ritchie to give the Islanders a chance they grabbed on to with both hands.
Poetically, Ritchie scored just 49 seconds into the four-minute double minor, the puck slowly trickling over the line off a scramble in the crease.
Fifty-nine seconds later, it was a tie game as Bo Horvat put one in from the slot.
“It’s big for the confidence,” Ritchie told The Post. “I think we kinda simplified some things, routes and stuff. I thought it went well. Had some traffic in front of the net on the one and then the other one is a good set play by Barzy and Bo.”
The Islanders have not had many games this year in which their power play could be leaned upon. But there is no time like the present.
“We got it in a moment we needed it and it was a difference-maker,” Anders Lee told The Post. “All we can do as a power play is take it game by game. Can’t worry about where we are, how it doesn’t look good with the numbers, all that stuff. Tonight it won us the game.”
More precisely, it got the match into overtime, and there is no place where the Islanders are more comfortable than 3-on-3.
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They’re now a ridiculous 10-0 in games that end in OT after Barzal took a feed from Schenn, split two defenders and ripped one in 2:11 into the extra period.
While the night had seemed to get away from the Islanders during a few minutes on either side of the game’s midpoint when Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud scored less than two minutes apart to extend a 1-0 Blues lead to 3-0, the visitors had largely dominated the puck and the shot count.
They finished with 49 shots on net, their highest total of the season, and Lee said they felt like they were playing a great game the whole way.
“We made some mistakes, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “On the flip side of that, it felt like we were in complete control.”
It was, briefly, shaping into a familiar story, in which the Islanders failed to generate enough traffic around Joel Hofer’s net to capitalize on their chances.
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What ended up mattering more were the same qualities the Isles have leaned on all season: their never-say-die resilience and ability to raise their game when it matters most.
And it may have helped a little that they started playing around the crease, too.
“It all started with a great call by our video guys,” coach Patrick Roy said, reminding of the offside challenge that prevented the game from reaching a 4-0 deficit that likely would have proven insurmountable. “That offside, it was nice for them to pick it up. I thought that was a key moment in the game.”
With the Blue Jackets winning and the Penguins picking up a point in a shootout loss to Carolina, the pressure would have been squarely on the Islanders had they returned home without two points in hand.
Instead, they’ll do so with the wind at their backs.
