The Islanders' comeback Tuesday night started with a power-play goal.
And that success was due in no small part to the penalty kill in overtime.
That's not all the 4-3 overtime win over the Penguins.
But this is a microcosm of how the Islanders have to win and how they have to survive during this injury-filled period with every depth tested.
Special teams was far from perfect on Tuesday, with the Penguins scoring on the power play and the Islanders wasting their own 4-on-3 chance in overtime.
However, they were timely, areas where the islanders did not fully concede, and were one of the few such cases this year.
Their current power play success rate is 13.64%, which ranks 28th in the league.
Penalty kill ranks 30th at 66.67 percent.
If you need an explanation for why the Islanders often lose games despite winning by expected goals and shots, it's black and white.
As Patrick Roy acknowledged, the Islanders will likely spend more and more nights like Tuesday spending much of their 5-on-5 play in their own zone.
This is due in no small part to the fact that they were missing three defensemen and two-thirds of their top line from the opening game.
“Are we going to give up more shots? Yes,” Roy said. “We conceded 40 goals against Rangers and tonight we conceded 35. “That’s going to happen because they need to get more comfortable at that level and there won’t be any gaps like, “We conceded 40 goals tonight. [Alexander Romanov] would or [Adam Pelech] I would. That's normal. They need time and they need to get that experience, so we have to take that into account as well when we look at them. ”
Any honest assessment of how the Islanders can expect their 5-on-5 play to flow is probably correct, at least until a few of their defensemen return.
That makes it more important for special teams to win games instead of losing them.
This is not a new paradigm. It's been a long time since the Islanders could reliably rely on the power play, and their penalty kill last season was historically awful. But the importance of reversing it has suddenly skyrocketed.
A healthy version of the Islanders could hang around with bad special teams in the playoff race.
An unhealthy version of the Islanders could go along with good special teams.
There's no version of the Islanders, missing five regulars, struggling on both special teams and still in playoff contention in the new year.
That doesn't necessarily mean the Islanders need to be a world power when the strength of the game isn't even.
But that means they can't be in the bottom half of the league and at least need to step up at the right time within the special teams game.
It's not the highest bar in the world, but it's one the Islanders have struggled to clear with any consistency for a long time.
Doing so on Tuesday was, in no small part, why they turned a demoralizing night into their best win so far this season.
This equation won't get easier any time soon. Six of the next seven players won't be playing on the road, and there's no realistic indication that injured players will be back anytime soon.
So this is how the Islanders need to change it in their favor.
“It definitely gave the group confidence and gave us confidence on special teams,” Bo Horvat said. “We can definitely be better in that area. I think that helps us win a lot of games. That contributed to the win tonight.”
