Game Recap: Islanders 2, Hurricanes 1 OT

The New York Islanders started their season on a winning note Thursday, beating the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 in overtime at PNC Arena.
Josh Bailey's power-play goal lifted the Islanders in overtime, while Thomas Greiss stopped 45 shots in the win. Valtteri Filppula and Carolina's Jordan Staal rounded out the scoring in the season opener. Petr Mrazek made 18 saves in the loss.
BOXSCORE | POSTGAME VIDEO

GREISS, GREISS BABY:
Thomas Greiss was easily the Islanders first star on Thursday, stopping 45-of-46 shots in the win.
Greiss held the fort for the Islanders from puck drop, turning aside 16 shots in the first period alone, as the Isles tried to find their footing against an aggressive and trigger-happy Hurricanes team.
He was aggressive, fought for his crease and was able to pick up shots through traffic, especially on three Hurricanes power plays as the Isles PK went 3-for-3. He looked spry in his crease as well, sliding across to stop a Sebastian Aho one-timer in the second and two-on-one in the third.
"He stood on his head," said Mathew Barzal, who set up Bailey's winning goal. "He made some huge saves for us late in the game. We were lucky to get those two points and he was the first star of the night forsure."

Greiss, who got bailed out by a couple of posts, appeared destined for a shutout, but the Hurricanes broke through with 1:35 to play, as Dougie Hamilton's point shot deflected off Staal and past Greiss. The Islanders challenged the goal, but to no avail.
Staal's goal ended Greiss' PNC Arena shutout streak at 1:58:19 - with his last goal against coming in second period on March 14, 2017.
"Huge performance for us. A lot of big saves, timely saves," Bailey said. "Those are ones when your goalie gives you a chance like that, you want to win it for him. Luckily we were able to do that."

BAILEY WINS IT IN OT:
Josh Bailey looks to be settling into his role as the triggerman on the Islanders top power-play unit.
Bailey buried a cross-ice feed from Barzal on a 4-on-3 power play in overtime to win it for the Islanders. That's been Bailey's role throughout preseason and appears to be finding some chemistry with Barzal, who also found him for a power-play goal in similar fashion in the Isles preseason win in Bridgeport.
"Bailey is an undercover goal scorer. He doesn't get enough credit for that. He's got a good one-timer," Barzal said. "We won a big battle in the corner, Anders Lee was fighting for that and changed it completely. It was a four-man effort."
The Isles power play went 1-for-3 on the night. Barzal drew the penalty that led to the OT power play, getting tripped up by Michael Ferland with 3.6 seconds to play in the third period.

ISLES BEND, DON'T BREAK:
The Islanders were the first to admit that Thursday's win wasn't the prettiest, as they were outshot 46-20 and spent long stretches defending in their own end. They felt their game improved as the night went on, but recognize there's plenty of room for improvements, especially as Barry Trotz implements his new system.
"We have some work to do," said Trotz, who picked up his first win with the Islanders. "Way too many turnovers. I didn't think we managed the puck - our decisions weren't really great especially on our exits. We turned pucks over on exits, our execution wasn't good, but it'll come."
But resilience is a good quality in a team and while there are things to work on, the Isles were happy to be able to grind their way to two points.
"If we have nights where we're not executing well or maybe a little flat and not able to connect with each other as well. If you can grind one out that's a huge component that'll pay off at the end of the year," Cal Clutterbuck said.
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NEXT GAME:
The Islanders are back in action on Saturday night when the team hosts the Nashville Predators in their home opener at Barclays Center at 7 p.m.