NEW YORK — With so much on the line, the Flyers should have been playing like a desperate team Tuesday night against the lowly New York Islanders at the Barclays Center.
Instead, they went through the motions for most of the first 40 minutes before awaking in the third period. They got a pair of power-play goals from coming-of-age rookie Nolan Patrick and a tally from Claude Giroux to overcome a 4-1 deficit and tie the score at 4-all.
No matter.
Speedy rookie Mathew Barzal got behind Jori Lehtera and scored on a breakaway with 6:28 left, steering the Islanders to a wild 5-4 victory.