Islanders tie it late as Anders Lee scores twice, but fall to Oilers in overtime

EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid chased history — a four-point night leaving him one shy of 1,000 — while the Islanders chased the Oilers.

But the Islanders, who struggled for much of the game to possess the puck and fell behind by two in the third period, managed to open their season-longest road trip with a 4-3 overtime loss on Tuesday night at Rogers Place, thanks to two late goals from Anders Lee.

“I don’t think we had enough zone time tonight,” Lee said. “Too many one-and-dones. [Ilya] Sorokin stood tall, really tall. Gave us a chance to tie that game up. That’s a big point.”

McDavid, with a goal and three assists, is on the precipice of becoming the fourth fastest and, at age 27, the fourth youngest in NHL history to reach 1,000 points. He set up Leon Draisaitl’s winner at 1:52 of the extra period with the Islanders, by coach Patrick Roy’s description, “gassed.”

So the Islanders (6-6-4), on a 2-0-2 run, still have not won in Edmonton since March 7, 2017. The Oilers (8-7-1) have won six straight against them at home and 12 of 13.

Defenseman Ryan Pulock, who iced the puck early in overtime, was on the ice for the entire 1:52. Simon Holmstrom was out for the final 1:17 and Bo Horvat for 1:14.

“There’s nights where, going home, you’re [ticked] off,” Roy said. “There’s nights you’re going home and you say, ‘OK, we stole a point.’ Tonight that was the case. By the end, I think we were just gassed. We had a hard time to break out because the guys could not move their feet.”

But this doesn’t get to OT if it wasn’t for Sorokin, who made 38 saves, including two point-blank shots from McDavid on a rush at 15:07 of the third period before Lee tied it. Sorokin faced 15 shots in the third period and four more in overtime.

McDavid tied defenseman Evan Bouchard with a game-high eight shots.

“He’s the best player in the world,” Sorokin said. “You never know what he does in the rink. He scored a nice goal and gave two great passes. It’s a big point for us, we had a good comeback. In overtime, we don’t play really great. We play in one zone. One point, not two but it’s better than nothing. We played good defense today.”

The Islanders blocked 18 shots, including five by defenseman Noah Dobson.

The Oilers’ Stuart Skinner stopped 19 shots.

“We pick up points while we’re missing a lot of guys,” said Roy, whose lineup is still without defensemen Adam Pelech, Mike Reilly and Alexander Romanov and top-liners Mathew Barzal and Anthony Duclair. “We should gain confidence because we’re playing some good hockey. When we’re tired, we’re tired. But for 50 minutes, I thought we kept up with them.”

Bouchard beat Sorokin from the left circle to make it 2-1 just 57 seconds into the third period and McDavid pushed it to 3-1 with a backhander from the low slot at 10:19. Lee cut the deficit back to one with a rebound goal at 12:54 and tied it from just above the paint with the Islanders skating six-on-five at 17:20.

The Oilers took a 1-0 lead on Draisaitl’s power-play one-timer off McDavid’s cross-ice feed just 36 seconds into the second period and the Islanders could only blame themselves.

Their last shift of the first period was a defensive nightmare as they gave away the puck multiple times low in their zone, leading to shots from defenseman Darnell Nurse, Corey Perry and McDavid in the final 10 seconds and culminating in defenseman Scott Mayfield’s interference call against Perry with 0.9 seconds left.

Max Tsyplakov passed up an open look to feed Kyle Palmieri to tie it at 1-1 at 15:58 of the second period.

Notes & quotes: Roy said Semyon Varlamov will likely be in net in Vancouver on Thursday night ... Romanov (upper body) missed his fifth straight game and eighth out of the last nine. But he practiced with the team for the second straight day, again wearing an orange, non-contact jersey during the morning skate. “There’s progress there but it’s still day to day,” Roy said ... Forward Hudson Fasching remained the healthy scratch.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.