Islanders 5, Penguins 4: Palmieri hits 30, Sorokin stops Crosby penalty shot to seal win (2024)

The New York Islanders concluded the 2023-24 regular season by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in regulation, giving the Isles 94 points to the Penguins’ 88, which one prays is a large enough margin for Pittsburgh media to accept that one will be in the postseason while the other stays home.

(It is absolutely hilarious that Penguins water carriers took great pains to create alternate universes with a “3-2-1-0” points system where the Penguins would still have a chance at a playoff spot in the final game...only to see them lose anyway, while every Penguin asked said changing the points system would be foolish.)

Good lord, the entitlement.

Anyway, in the universe the rest of us all occupy, this was a meaningless game for both teams. But at least they handled that by scoring lots rather than scoring none and sending us to a shootout or something. (The only thing sadder than a regular season shootout is a regular season shootout when the outcome means nothing to either team.)

[NHL Gamecenter | Game Summary | Event Summary | Natural Stat Trick]

Notably, Kyle Palmieri reached 30 goals (surviving a frivolous coach’s challenge for high stick), Brock Nelson scored his 34th to pass Bo Horvat for the team lead, Simon Holmstrom scored his 15th in his revelation season, Ruslan Iskhakov — oft-rumored to be KHL-bound if he doesn’t get an NHL opportunity — made his surprise NHL debut and logged an assist, and countryman Ilya Sorokin stopped Sidney Crosby on a terrible slow-motion penalty shot in the final minute, preserving the Isles’ 5-4 victory.

By Penguin standards, Sorokin stretching for a glove save on Crosby in a meaningless game should probably be bronzed and statued outside the arena at Belmont.

Also: Samuel Bolduc reappeared from hibernation as the Isles rested several bodies and dressed seven defensem*n, and he scored — his second goal in a 34-game second rookie season. Iskhakov got the secondary assist on Bolduc’s goal, which came on the power play and deflected in off a Penguin skate. But Iskhakov had shown some nice footwork to get the puck out of his skates along the boards and feed Ryan Pulock.

Meanwhile, the Penguins dressed someone named Jack St. Ivany, which is a pretty cool name. And Jeff Carter scored in what was announced as his final NHL game, not that anyone would be re-signing him anyway.

Normally I’d say something snarky here about the Penguins, but that was kind of already baked into the intro, and these days the Penguins snark themselves.

With their near-wild card finish, the Pens will not be gifted another franchise player in the draft (unlike the Blackhawks, who are Penguins West), and they might just have to live life in the middle for a few years like most franchises, instead of their usual wild swings from bankruptcy/near-relocation to generational star-led run of success. They might even get one of their beat writers to stop laughably referring to them as “the Lakers of the NHL” — oh, ha, no that’s asking too much.

They have now missed the postseason two years in a row, they haven’t won a playoff round since before the global pandemic, and the Isles really kicked off this spiral by sweeping them in 2019. I’m not saying the Isles are in a great position nor have had mammoth success the last few years — Bossy knows we crucify them regularly here — but, oh, when you’ve lived long enough and seen franchise ebbs and flows for long enough, you learn to smile and nod at franchises that are surrounded by an arrogant, entitled ecosystem of media and the fans they fuel. They eventually fall. They rarely see it coming. They always find it’s Someone’s Fault that the good times are not perpetually guaranteed.

So this way of concluding the regular season? It’s nice. I’ll take it. Unlike much of this tortured yet somehow playoff-bound season, would watch again.

Up Next

In the only pertinent news of the night, the league announced that Game 1 of the Isles’ series against the Carolina Hurricanes will be Saturday at 5 p.m. Will we lose in 5, 6 or 7?