Islanders rally past Penguins to make playoff hopes feel real again

PITTSBURGH — The Islanders keep flirting with being in the playoff race, sticking around the edge enough that you can’t quite say they are out even when nearly everything about them says they ought to be.When it comes time to commit, though, this on-again, off-again relationship always seems to revert to mediocrity.Or at least it did.Maybe, just maybe, the Islanders seized their chance at making this real on Tuesday night.A second straight third-period rally, this one to seize a 4-2 win over the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena, put the Isles ahead of the Bruins and tied them with Columbus in the standings, but it’s the chance to start another winning streak that’s really tantalizing.The Islanders have been a streaky club dating back to mid-January, when they won seven in a row.

There would be no better time to get things going again than now, when the underwhelming Eastern wild-card race is crying out for someone to get hot.If that someone ends up being the Islanders, this could be a third straight season with an improbable rally into the postseason.This was not as easy a game as it looked at first glance, with the Penguins coming in holding a four-game winning streak of their own and Alexander Romanov — the Islanders’ best defenseman all year — up in the press box after coming down ill Monday night.The rotten injury luck has indeed extended to sickness, with viruses going around the room for the duration of the year, affecting Adam Boqvist on Tuesday as well as Romanov.Still, since returning from an awful trip to California, the Islanders have earned points in three straight games, and just as importantly, they’ve been deserving.Just like Sunday, the Islanders appeared to have the edge at times early in Tuesday’s match, but it looked like a failure to create and finish Grade-A chances would doom them, down 2-0 after two periods.Just like Sunday, they put it all together just in time.There was no messing around in this third period, with Kyle Palmie...