PITTSBURGH — The Islanders keep on flirting with being in the playoff race, sticking around the edge enough that you can’t quite say they are out even when nearly everything about them says they ought to be.
When it comes time to commit, though, this on-again, off-again relationship always seems to revert to mediocrity.
Or at least it did.
Maybe, just maybe, the Islanders seized their chance at making this real on Tuesday night.
A second straight third-period rally, this one to seize a 4-2 win over the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena, puts the Isles three points back of the Canadiens for the final playoff spot in the East with Thursday’s home match against the Habs suddenly looking awfully important.
The Islanders also hopped over the Bruins, Red Wings and Blue Jackets in the standings, while pulling within two points of the Rangers with two games in hand.
In the span of a week, they’ve shifted the entire vibe of the season.
“Like the last game, just need to be resilient and that’s who this group is,” coach Patrick Roy said. “They’re very resilient. They take care, want to win and they came in that third period playing the exact same way. That’s what I love.”
With Alexander Romanov up in the press box, the club’s best defenseman all season having come down ill on Monday night, this was never going to be an easy lift.
Just like Sunday, the Islanders appeared to have the edge at times early in Tuesday’s match, but down 2-0 after two periods, it looked like a failure to create and finish grade A chances would doom them.
Just like Sunday, they put it all together just on time.
There was no messing around in this third period, with Kyle Palmieri getting on the rush and putting one past Tristan Jarry just 17 seconds in to cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 2-1.
Barely five minutes later, Noah Dobson — the hero from Sunday — was at the crease to make a diving play and stuff in Bo Horvat’s rebound to tie the game.
On Tuesday, the hero would be Pierre Engvall. With the Islanders facing some pressure after tying the game — including a Connor Dewar two-on-one chance that went just wide of Ilya Sorokin’s net — Engvall chased down Dobson’s chip up the ice and slid it past Jarry before the goalie knew what had happened.
And just like Sunday, Simon Holmstrom’s empty-netter sealed it.
“Confidence is a scary thing this time of year if you can find it,” Dobson said. “Have that belief no matter how the game’s going or where the game’s at that you can come back and win — that’s huge. That’s two in a row. Obviously we don’t want to be trailing every night, but just showing when we are down, we can find our way back and stick with it and good things will happen.”
Earlier this season, it was the Islanders frequently letting leads waste away in the third period.
That they are now playing the opposite role was not lost on Roy.
“It’s nice to do to teams what some teams did to us early on,” he said, “and find ways to come back and win games in the third period.”
There are still issues to solve with the Islanders, with the power play on an 0-for-18 skid and a top six which has been underwhelming at best since the trade deadline.
But the way they’ve locked down games after the first six weeks of the season and the way the penalty kill has turned around — it was a perfect 3-for-3 Tuesday, including a crucial kill late in the third — are feathers in Roy’s cap.
So is the resilience the Islanders have continued to display when the season for so long looked like a race to nowhere.
“Especially this time of year, whether we’re trailing or down, he’s never too high or too low,” Dobson said. “Having that calming influence wears off on the players. We can see it.”
The Islanders have been a streaky club dating back to mid-January, when they won seven in a row.
There would be no better time to get things going again than now, when the underwhelming Eastern wild-card race is crying out for someone to get hot.
If that someone ends up being the Islanders, this could be a third straight season with an improbable rally into the postseason.
