Takeaways: Sorokin, Bailey Help Islanders Steal Game 5 From Pittsburgh | NYHN+

The New York Islanders did not play their best game Monday night. Not even close, in fact.

But thanks to the heroics of Ilya Sorokin and Josh Bailey they skated to a 3-2 double OT win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series.

With one more win, the Islanders would move on to the second round of the postseason for the third straight season.

Let’s take a look at the finer points from this lengthy thriller.

Sorkin steals the show 

Sorokin started Game 1 out of necessity. He started Game 4 because of Semyon Varlamov’s struggles. He’s now started in three games this series and won all three.

“He was outstanding, gave us a chance,” Barry Trotz said of his netminder. “Our first two periods were not pretty, and it allowed us to hang around. … It all goes upfront on Ilya. We don’t have a chance if he doesn’t have an outstanding game in the first two periods.”

He’s been far and away the team’s best player this series, and he emphasized that in a big way Monday night in Pittsburgh.

After Bryan Rust scored from the point at 7:37 of the second, he was perfect and the Islanders needed him to be as Pittsburgh out-skated and outplayed them for large stretches.

Overall he stopped 48 of 50 chances and kept Pittsburgh off the board in overtime. In the last two games he’s yielded three goals on 80 shots. He’s been the definition of brick wall time and time again in this series.

“He was obviously really big for us tonight,” Anthony Beauvillier said. “Key saves, obviously kept us in the game when we weren’t on top of our game. He made some huge saves for us”

Jarry’s mishap, Bailey’s timely play

The talk of this series has been Tristan Jarry’s inability to stop shots high on his glove side. Well, this time it was his play with the stick that more than cost his team.

Less than a minute into the second overtime, Jarry played the puck right to Josh Bailey, who faked a shot and then did beat Jarry on the glove side. Bailey’s now scored three goals in these playoffs and this one obviously could not have come at a more ideal time for the Islanders.

“At first I was just trying to settle it [the puck] down, wanted to get a good shot off and ultimately just kinda ran out of time and just tried to let one go,” Bailey added. “Just happy to see it go in.”

It’s not the first time Bailey’s been an overtime hero for the Islanders, as he won Game 1 in 2019 against the same Pittsburgh club. That one set the tone of the series. This one gives the Islanders a better chance at winning this hard-fought matchup.

Outplayed, not outscored 

As Trotz mentioned in his earlier quote, the Islanders were not up to par in the first few periods. And you can argue outside the play of Sorokin, the Islanders did not deserve to win this game in the slightest.

“I just thought they established their game quicker than we did,” Trotz said. “And I thought they were spot on their game early and we weren’t. I will say this, I will give a lot of credit to our guys for hanging in there.”

In the first and third periods, they were hovering around 35 percent of the total shot attempts for as Pittsburgh skated with speed and generated a fair share of shots. To their credit, the Islanders did have a strong statistical second period with 60.87 Corsi For, though ironically enough, it was their only frame in regulation where they didn’t score.

In terms of high danger chances, the Islanders actually did beat the eye test and led 14-8 in regulation in that category.

“We just had to stick with it,” Bailey said. “Ilya was playing great, a real backbone for us. it gave us some confidence that he was going to get the job done. We just had to stick with it and hope to find a way to get it.”

And even with the poor start, the Islanders skated out of the first period tied. Anthony Beauvillier’s beautiful goal with under a minute left in the first period was an immense boost for New York.