SALT LAKE CITY — No. 1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer scored at 2:06 of overtime to beat the Utah Mammoth 3-2 in overtime and extend the New York Islanders‘ winning streak to four games.
With that goal, Schaefer became the youngest player in NHL history at 18 years and 70 days to score an overtime goal, surpassing Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby (18 years, 101 days).
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Schaefer took a big hit and sacrificed the body to block a shot in the second and third period respectively, grinding to help his team to victory.
“Big game. I mean, we fought back, we fought hard,” Schaefer said. “I don’t think our first was the best, but we just kept fighting, we kept getting better. So I think we deserved that win.”
Despite a slow start to the game, the Islanders found themselves up 1-0 at 7:13 of the first thanks to another Emil Heieneman tally, scoring his eighth goal of the season — two short of his career-high.
J.J. Peterka and and Dylan Guenther scored before the end of the first, but Jonathan Drouin evened the score at 13:44 of the third after he kicked a puck toward call that Nate Schmidt put into his own net.
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That led to overtime where Schaefer did his thing.
David Rittich was phenomenal, turning aside 27 of 29.
The Islanders have now tied the Penguins in points with 22, but Pittsburgh owns the regulation wins tie-breaker — nine to seven. They sit only two points back of the Carolina Hurricanes for the second seed in the Metro.
The Islanders move on to Colorado, where they’ll battle Brock Nelson and the Avalanche on Sunday night.
