The Upshot: NY Islanders blow another third period lead; fall 4-3 in OT to Carolina Hurricanes

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Carolina Hurricanes came back from down 3-0 in the second period to defeat the New York Islanders 4-3 in overtime at UBS Arena on Saturday night. Sebastian Aho scored 1:14 into OT to complete the comeback win. Noah Dobson opened the scoring for the Isles, and Simon Holmstrom scored a short-handed goal in the first period. Mathew Barzal scored his second of the season to extend the lead and added an assist. Bo Horvat had two assists, and Ilya Sorokin made 44 saves in the loss. Jalen Chatfield and Dmitry Orlov each scored to pull Carolina to within one before Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored on the power play to tie the game. Antti Raanta had 22 saves in the win.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Mathew Barzal was everywhere through the first two periods and it was arguably his best game of the season. He set up Noah Dobson's backhanded goal that made it 1-0 and later scored on a nice give-and-go with Bo Horvat to extend the lead to 3-0 at 7:46 of the second period.

For the game, Barzal played 21:08 to lead all forwards and had a team-high four shots on goal.

WHAT WENT WRONG

For the second consecutive home game, the Islanders blew a two-goal lead in the third period.

"We sat back just a touch and couldn't really get the puck out our zone," said Barzal. "We'll find a way not to let that happen again." The Hurricanes outshot the Isles 20-5 in the disastrous third period and yet the Islanders still held a two-goal lead with less than eight minutes to play.

The players understandably were frustrated after the game, but what's disappointing is that they didn't learn from what happened two games ago against the Detroit Red Wings. As much as Lane Lambert doesn't want to consider this a trend, it's happened far too often through ten games and he keeps talking about the same things they need to do better to protect leads.

“We just have to find ways to close it out,” Dobson said. “We didn’t execute well enough in the third, we were stuck in our own end the whole time. That’s not a good recipe for success, so we’ll take it, learn from it, move on and get ready for the next one.”

STATS OF THE GAME

Per NHL PR, Noah Dobson collected his 33rd career goal and tied Tomas Jonsson for the second most by an Islanders defenseman before age 24. Denis Potvin tops the list with 95. Mathew Barzal (1-1—2) had a pair of points so to move past Stefan Persson (52-317—369 in 622 GP) into sole possession of 18th on the franchise’s all-time points list.

SOCIAL MEDIA MOMENT OF THE GAME

WHAT'S NEXT

The Islanders are back on the ice Tuesday night when they host the Minnesota Wild at UBS Arena

Face-off is scheduled to 7:30 PM EDT.