The New York Islanders showed they could trade punches with the Tampa Bay Lightning. They also showed why Pete DeBoer keeps asking for a complete game.

After digging themselves out of an early two-goal hole, the Islanders surrendered Brandon Hagel’s go-ahead goal with 1:44 remaining Saturday night, falling 5-3 at UBS Arena.

Hagel beat Ilya Sorokin through a screen, then added an empty-netter 21 seconds later to complete his hat trick. The Islanders dropped to 2-3-0, continuing their pattern of alternating losses and wins.

“That’s a tough one,” DeBoer said. “I liked how we handled the adversity of the night. It was self-inflicted with our start.”

That start put New York behind 2-0 after first-period goals from Jake Guentzel and Hagel. Against a team with Tampa Bay’s talent, it was an expensive head start.

But the Islanders pushed back.

Tony DeAngelo scored through a Jean-Gabriel Pageau screen at 6:27 of the second period. Guentzel answered on the power play, restoring Tampa Bay’s two-goal cushion, before Pageau redirected Matthew Schaefer’s shot to bring New York within one.

Brayden Schenn completed the comeback with seven seconds remaining in the period, converting Bo Horvat’s slap pass on the power play. Suddenly, an ugly opening had become a winnable game.

“Special teams were great for us,” DeBoer said. “If we’re going to beat teams like that, we’ve got to win the special teams battle. We got a power play goal. I thought our PK was really good even though we gave one up. I like where the direction our special teams are going in.”

Sorokin kept it tied with a third-period stop on Zemgus Girgensons, while Andrei Vasilevskiy barely denied Anthony Duclair’s wraparound at the other end.

Then Hagel delivered the difference.

“It was a good measuring stick game for us,” DeBoer said. “We passed quite a few of the tests in my mind of how we have to play.”

The response was encouraging. The result still stung.

“We just have to do it for 60 minutes,” DeBoer said. “You can’t spot a team like that two goals.”

The Islanders look to get back in the win column on Tuesday night versus Vancouver.

Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow