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 John Taveras' goal early in the third period lifted the New York
Islanders to a 3-1 victory over Pittsburgh on Friday night as the
Penguins again failed to lock down a playoff berth with its fifth
straight loss.
The Penguins (43-26-12) need two points against the Buffalo Sabres
-- whose 23-49-8 record is the worst in the NHL -- on Saturday night
at Buffalo or will miss the playoffs for the first time since the
2005-06 season.
"It's a high-pressure situation, there is no doubt about that," said
defenseman Rob Scuderi, who scored the Penguins' only goal, his
first in more than two years. "But we can't make more out of it than
it really is and that's to go up there and win a hockey game. It's
as simple as that. We have to win."
Despite being 4-7-2 in their last 13 games, the Islanders (47-28-6)
are headed to the playoffs. They clinched a playoff spot Thursday
despite being off when the Boston Bruins lost to the Florida
Panthers.
The Islanders are now assured of finishing third in the Metropolitan
Division and will face the Washington Capitals in a first-round
series in the Eastern Conference.
Taveras scored his 37th goal of the season with 17:14 remaining to
break a 1-1 tie, converting a rebound when right winger Kyle
Okposo's shot from the blue line caromed off goaltender Marc-Andre
Fleury's left pad.
With two days left in the season, Taveras and Penguins center Sidney
Crosby, who assisted on Scuderi's goal, are tied for the league lead
with 84 points. The Dallas Stars left winger Jamie Benn has 83.
Left winger Michael Grabner added a goal, his eighth of the season,
on an end-to-end rush with 3:40 remaining to pad the Islanders' lead
to 3-1. The Consol Energy Center crowd then spent the game's final
minutes booing the fading Penguins.
Center Casey Cizikas also scored as the Islanders won for just the
fourth time in their last 22 games in Pittsburgh. Goaltender
Jaroslav Halak stopped 37 shots.
The Penguins broke through against Halak when Scuderi scored on
their 27th shot of the game to tie the score at 1 with five seconds
left in the second period. After a scramble at the net, Scuderi
corralled the loose puck at the left circle and fired a shot past
Halak.
It just the eighth goal of Scuderi's 11-year career and his first
since Jan. 19, 2013, when he played for the Los Angeles Kings.
However, that wound up being the only goal the Penguins scored as
Halak continually stonewalled them.
"Jaro came up big for us, especially in the first," Islanders coach
Jack Capuano said. "He made three or four tremendous saves to keep
the score what it was."
The Islanders also played good defense in front of Halak.
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"We played smart and beared down and tried to not give up any
odd-man rushes," Grabner said. "We knew they had a lot of
desperation in their game today, you could see that in the amount of
shots they had. A lot of times we limited their shots to the outside
and cleared out the second and third chances."
While the Penguins only got one past Halak, they were encouraged by
their quantity of shots.
"I thought we played a lot better game than we have for the last
couple of weeks," Scuderi said. "We ran into a good goaltender and
playing a good game wasn't enough to get a win."
The Islanders opened the scoring with a short-handed goal by
Cizikas, his ninth goal of the season, eight minutes into the game.
He took a stretch pass from right winger Cal Clutterback and beat
Fleury high to the glove side.
"We had a lot of great scoring opportunities throughout the game and
we should have scored more than one goal," Penguins coach Mike
Johnston said. "This is a results business, though, and the result
was a loss for us."
NOTES: Islanders LW Matt Martin and C Frans Nielsen both missed the
game with undisclosed injuries. While Nielsen was with the team,
Martin remained back in New York. ... New York D Travis Hamonic left
the game in the first period with an undisclosed injury and did not
return. ... Islanders RW Cal Clutterbuck returned to action and was
credited with a game-high seven hits after sitting out Tuesday's
loss at Philadelphia, with yet another undisclosed injury. ...
Pittsburgh was left with just five defenseman as D Christian Ehrhoff
and D Derrick Pouliot both sat out with upper-body injuries and D
Kris Letang continued to be sidelined by a concussion. ... Penguins
LW Chris Spaling was in the lineup despite suffering a lower-body
injury that forced him out of Tuesday's loss at Ottawa.
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