The Tampa Bay Lightning again withstood an early push from the Islanders and pulled out another big overtime victory.
Jason Garrison scored 1:34 into the extra period to give the Lightning a 2-1 victory in New York on Friday night for a 3-1 series lead.
Garrison took a pass from Andrej Sustr and fired a slap shot from the right faceoff circle past goalie Thomas Greiss. The Lightning won two straight overtime games in Brooklyn to move them one win away from reaching the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year.
‘‘Sustr made a nice play over to me, on a screen I think, and I was able to find the back of the net,’’ Garrison said. ‘‘That’s a nice feeling. Any goal in the playoffs is big, obviously an overtime one is definitely a sigh of relief.’’
Nikita Kucherov evened this one at 7:49 of the third for his NHL leading eight of the playoffs for Tampa Bay. He took a pass from Tyler Johnson and fired a slap shot from the left faceoff dot past Greiss’ blocker.
‘‘He’s proven he’s not a one-hit wonder,’’ Lightning coach Jon Cooper said about Kucherov, who had 10 goals and 12 assists during the team’s run to the Stanley Cup finals last year. ‘‘Just continues to amaze. Pretty impressive.’’
New York came out aggressive at home for the second straight game, but again gave up a lead in the third period and is now loss from being eliminated.
‘‘The last two games have been good hockey games,’’ Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. ‘‘That’s how close these two teams are . . . We gave up five shots in the third period, maybe one chance, and they tie the game. You can’t ask our guys for too much more.’’
Islanders goalie Kyle Okposo didn’t take much solace in the team’s strong effort.
‘‘At this time of year it’s not about playing well and losing,’’ he said, ‘‘you got to win. It doesn’t matter if you play bad and win, play good and win. You got to find a way to win the game and we just didn’t do it tonight.’’
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Mike Fisher scored at 11:12 of the third overtime, and the Nashville Predators beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-3, early Friday morning in the longest game in franchise history.
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Cody Eakin scored at 2:58 of overtime and Dallas beat host St. Louis, 3-2, bouncing back from a blowout loss two days earlier to tie the second-round series at two games apiece.
