Islanders Score Late in 3rd, Beat Flyers in OT

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Preseason games on the road can be difficult, especially early in the preseason when many teams don't want to sent their star veterans traveling. The Flyers only took five regular starters from last season to Long Island for the second game of the preseason.

The Flyers and Islanders traded goals in the third, allowing the Flyers to carry a 2-1 lead into the final minutes. But with the goalie pulled, an Islanders All-Star worked his magic to force overtime. Mathew Barzal dazzled with two great set-ups on Islander goals in the third, including the tying goal by Jordan Eberle with 1:34 remaining in the third.

In overtime, a shot by Anders Lee handcuffed Jean-Francois Berube and Mason Jobst pounced on the loose puck for the game-winning goal with 53 seconds remaining to give the Islanders a 3-2 comeback win over the Flyers on Tuesday night.

The Flyers got the first goal of the game early. At 3:30 of the opening period, a shot from the point by Chris Bigras was deflected in by Michael Raffl.

That was the only goal of the first period. Shots were even after the first, 6-6.

The second period was scoreless, but featured opportunities for both sides. The Flyers failed to score on a four-minute double minor to Barzal for high-sticking early in the period. The Islanders also had a power play in the period that was successfully killed off by the Flyers. Shots through two periods were 22-19 in favor of the Flyers.

Carter Hart played to just past the halfway point of the game, making 14 saves on 14 shots. 

In the third period, the Islanders group of veteran players started to carry play, as you would expect based on lineup disparity. Shots favored the Islanders, 15-3, in the final 20 minutes of regulation.

The Islanders got the game tied on a one-timer by Derick Brassard at the side of the net after a great feed from Barzal.

The Flyers scored just 91 seconds later to reclaim the lead as another point shot from Bigras was deflected, this time by Maksim Sushko.

Late in the third, the Islanders pulled the goalie, and that allowed Barzal to get some space to set up another goal. This time, he found Eberle in the slot, who went high over Berube to tie the game at two.

The Flyers were held to just one shot in the overtime, while the Islanders had three. The Islanders got a rush after winning a defensive-zone puck battle and moved up ice. Lee carried into the zone and fired a shot that Berube stopped, but thought he had wrapped up. The puck landed beside him in the crease and Jobst got there first to knock in the rebound for the win.

The Flyers return to Philadelphia for their next two preseason games. They return to the ice on Thursday night against the Boston Bruins at 7 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• PHI Michael Raffl (1) (Chris Bigras, Nate Prosser) 3:30

2nd Period

• No Scoring

3rd Period

• NYI Derick Brassard (1) (Mathew Barzal, Nick Leddy) 6:52
• PHI Maksim Sushko (1) (Bigras, Nicolas Aube-Kubel) 8:23
• NYI Jordan Eberle (1) (Barzal, Noah Dobson) 18:26

Overtime

• NYI Mason Jobst (1) (Anders Lee) 4:07