PHILADELPHIA — A do-or-die game for the Islanders’ playoff chances featured nearly every roller-coaster moment imaginable.
Flyers coach John Tortorella pulled his netminder after the first period so Ivan Fedotov could make his NHL debut mere days after being extracted from Russia.
Bo Horvat notched his 30th goal and 500th career point, left the game after taking a puck to the face, then returned to finish it.
The game seesawed no less than four times over 60 minutes of regulation, with the Flyers finally tying it up with 9.6 seconds to go in front of a raucous home crowd.
And finally, Brock Nelson came through with an overtime winner to keep hope alive for the Islanders, who went home 4-3 victors over the Flyers and three points behind the Capitals, who were bumped to the second wild-card spot because of Philadelphia’s loser point.
“Can’t make it up,” Isles captain Anders Lee said.
That would be an accurate description of this pulsating 61:24 of hockey in which the Islanders appeared to have succumbed to their season-long demons in the worst way possible before completing the first step in exorcizing them.
After Lee’s tip-in goal 17:54 into the second had given the Islanders a 3-2 lead, they had to hang onto it for the entirety of the third period in order to get out of Philadelphia with a regulation win.
For 19:50, the Islanders defended with manic energy, throwing themselves in front of shots when possible and getting an excellent effort from Semyon Varlamov when not.
Their battle level and wall play — which has often lacked recently — was superb.
They worked below the hash marks when holding the puck, with Lee in particular playing a starring role in this third period which required nothing but grind.
But sitting back with leads has cost the Islanders all year, and that’s just what they were doing.
Finally, skating at five-on-six, failing to clear the puck cost them.
With 9.6 seconds to go before a dramatic victory, Morgan Frost batted in a rebound from Jamie Drysdale’s point shot to send the game to overtime and open up Pandora’s Box for the Islanders.
“They pull the goalie, you know they’re gonna get some chances and you have to battle,” Ryan Pulock told The Post. “Just a bounce. A bounce. Landed in the right spot, weren’t able to get on it. It was important to get the win in the end.”
The Islanders shut the box right back closed as Nelson’s one-timer from Kyle Palmieri beat Fedotov 1:24 into the extra period.
“This is a playoff-type game. Playoffs, you can’t get deflated in playoffs,” Lee said. “You can’t let stuff like that change your mindset. This is a hockey game that there’s ebbs and flows. There’s mistakes, there’s momentum changes. Stay even keel, keep pushing. It happens.”
Failing to win in regulation could be costly down the road, as the Flyers picked up a point and now sit four ahead of the Islanders, who have two games in hand.
Detroit, which kept pace by beating the Lightning, is three ahead with a game in hand.
But failing to pick up the extra point in overtime would have spelled the unofficial end to the season.
That was what the Islanders knew they had to stave off.
“We were approaching it like it was a do-or-die scenario for us,” Nelson said.
Mathematically it may not have been, but in every other way, that’s what this was.
The Flyers knew it too, as Tortorella pulled Sam Ersson following a first period in which his starter allowed two goals on six shots to cough up the 1-0 lead built on Noah Cates’ goal 4:57 into the match.
Early in the second period, it seemed to pay off.
Travis Sanheim tied the game after just 43 seconds and the 6-foot-8 behemoth of a netminder was stopping nearly everything in sight, even as the Islanders started to tilt the ice.
Finally, Lee broke through, getting a stick to Alexander Romanov’s shot from the left point.
The defense-heavy third, in which the Islanders were outshot 19-3, was not so smooth.
“The difference between the second and third, we were quicker on those pucks, we competed better, we put pucks deep, we break out easy,” coach Patrick Roy said. “In the third, we just for some reason, our compete level was not as good as the second. We didn’t make as good decisions with that puck.
“But hey, listen, the key is we won the game.”
And the Islanders are living to see another day in the playoff race.
