Surging Islanders snag impressive comeback victory over Kings

The Islanders have played their best hockey of the season over the past couple weeks and might have gotten their best win of the season Saturday night.

That came by dint of stopping the Kings from setting an NHL-record road winning streak of 12 straight games, which the Islanders did by beating Los Angeles by a 3-2 score in overtime courtesy of Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s game-winner — and doing so by flipping the season-long script and staging a third-period comeback of their own.

The spark finally came via the combination of Mathew Barzal and Anders Lee with 11:18 to go in the night. Barzal got to a loose puck in the neutral zone and quickly shot it, with Lee right there to clean up the rebound.

Then with 4:11 to go, there was another rebound, and there was Lee again, cleaning up Scott Mayfield’s initial shot from the point to tie the game at two.

Kings netminder Cam Talbot repelled a series of subsequent chances to send the game to overtime, with Kyle Palmieri hitting iron then seeing another grade-A chance saved seconds later during an especially hectic sequence.

The Islanders have not played the role of resilient third-period comeback often this year. They did Saturday.

And it paid off in overtime, with the Islanders winning after regulation for just the third time this season, as Pageau buried a breakaway seconds into the extra period.

In victory, the Islanders won their fourth game in five and collected their eighth and ninth points out of the past 10 available. They also happened to do so against a club that entered Saturday with the best points percentage in the Western Conference.

Maybe Lane Lambert had a point when he kept saying he thought there were good signs afoot during the team’s seven-game losing streak in early November.

For the early part of the night, though, it looked like the offensive fuse that has lit the Islanders since then had gone out.

The Kings had seized control of the game after 25:12 of scoreless hockey when Scott Mayfield took exception to Andreas Englund’s legal hit on Mathew Barzal and fought the Kings’ defenseman. Mayfield was given an additional 2-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in addition to both players getting 5-minute fighting majors, and the L.A. power play went right to work.

After just 28 seconds, Adrian Kempe rocketed in a one-timer off Kevin Fiala’s feed to the right circle.

Just a few minutes later, Vladislav Gavrikov would double the lead, beating Ilya Sorokin from the top of the left circle through Trevor Moore’s screen. Lambert challenged for goaltender interference, but ended up on the losing end of a challenge for the first time in three tries this season.

No matter, his team would find redemption by the end of the night.

At 12-7-7, the Islanders have still lost more games than they have won this season, but because they kept collecting points via overtime losses at their nadir, they are right in the thick of the playoff race.

Not only that, but with the Flyers, Devils, Hurricanes, Capitals and themselves all within shouting distance of one another, the Islanders can start thinking about establishing a perch in second place in the Metropolitan Division.

There is still more proof needed to declare the Islanders bona-fide contenders — getting above .500 in terms of actual wins and losses and not just the NHL-standard points percentage would be a good place to start.

But the Islanders feel they can play with anyone in the league. And beating the Kings is some pretty good evidence in favor of that sentiment.