Thomas Greiss returned between the pipes Monday, his first shot at redemption since getting pulled after giving up five goals in an opening night loss to the Blue Jackets on Friday.
Coach Doug Weight said he thought the goalie had “earned a lot more than that 30 minutes from us as a team and from me.”
For 53-plus minutes Monday, Greiss didn’t get much help. He let in a pair of second-period goals, but stood on his head in the third to keep the Islanders within striking distance. Just before it was too late, his teammates finally returned the favor with two late third-period goals and settled for a point, falling 2-1 to the Blues in a matinee shootout at Barclays Center.
Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko both scored in the first two rounds of a shootout for the Blues and Jordan Eberle and Anthony Beauvillier came up empty for the Islanders.
“It’s a big point,” Weight said. “We would have loved to get two, but we’re not too greedy right now. It’s a good fight we had tonight.”
Blues netminder Jake Allen out-dueled Greiss (33 saves) and finished with 40 saves. He was on his way to a shutout before Andrew Ladd got the Islanders on the board with 6 minutes 56 seconds left in regulation on a shot from the right circle with Brock Nelson delivering a screen in front.
With some momentum on their side, the Islanders continued to push and finally found the equalizer after pulling Greiss for a man-advantage. Defenseman Thomas Hickey fired a shot from the blue line, which Allen denied. But the rebound popped loose in front of the net, where Lee, his back to the goaltender, was perfectly situated to control the puck, calmly turn to his left and slide it into the net with 59.2 seconds left.
“We had an extra man and [Eberle] and Thomas made a good play up top and got the puck to net,” Lee said. “Got a pretty nice bounce to the open ice for me.”
John Tavares had the Islanders’ best chance to win it in the 3-on-3 overtime period, but Allen answered with his biggest save of the day.
“I was able to get a good look and I think [Allen] just got a little fortunate,” Tavares said. “It just kind of clipped his jersey as it went through and went on the wrong side of the post. Obviously would have loved to have seen it gone in. That’ll probably be in my dreams a little bit tonight.”
Soon after, Nick Leddy took a slashing penalty trying to break up a Blues breakaway, but the Islanders killed it to force the shootout.
Greiss, who gave up both second-period goals to Tarasenko, made sure there was overtime in the first place by making some highlight-reel saves in the third. He dove across the crease to stop Vladimir Sobotka to keep the Blues’ lead at 2-0.
“[Greiss] played great,” Weight said. “He’s a battler and I think he showed that after us getting down. He’s a big part of us being able to scratch and claw to get a point out of this one.”
While the Islanders went 0-for-6 on the power play, they killed off five of six power plays to stay alive and salvage a point.
“I thought our [penalty kill] did a heck of a job and we really rallied around Thomas Greiss there at the end,” center Mathew Barzal said. “He kind of kept us in it with two huge saves and ultimately saved us a point. It was great to see the compete at the end.”