The way Josh Bailey described it, it was nothing special.
"At first, I was just trying to settle it down," Bailey said of his goal. "I wanted to get a good shot off. I just ultimately ran out of time and just tried to let one go. I was happy to see it go in."
Bailey's goal, which came in the first minute of the second overtime period at PPG Paints Arena on Monday night, put the Islanders up 3-2 in the first-round series, and put the Penguins on the brink of elimination.
Before the goal, Tristan Jarry came out of his net to play the puck. Though Evgeni Malkin and Mike Matheson were wide open along the boards on either side of him, Jarry opted to attempt to pass the puck further up ice, likely looking to spring one of those players on a rush.
Bailey picked off the pass and tried to settle the bouncing puck. As he said, he "ultimately ran out of time" as Matheson, Malkin, and Kasperi Kapanen closed in on him. He opted to just put the bouncing puck on net, and it went in.
It goes back to what Barry Trotz said his message to the team was between the first and second overtime periods.
"Dig in, play the right way, and there's not a bad shot," Trotz said after the game of what he said between overtimes.
It wasn't a pretty shot, but it's all it took.
As striking as Jarry's gaffe was, that's how strong the play of rookie goaltender Ilya Sorokin was once again on the other end of the rink.
The Penguins put 50 shots on Sorokin in the 80 minutes and 51 seconds that it took to decide this game, and he stopped all but two of them, including nine saves in overtime.
“Outstanding,” Trotz said of Sorokin's play. “I mean, I can use all the (words) that you want to write, they all will apply. He was outstanding. He gave us a chance. I mean, the first two periods were not pretty and he allowed us to hang around. ... It all goes up front on Ilya. We don't have a chance if he doesn't have an outstanding game in the first two periods, for sure."
“Ilya was playing great, a real backbone for us,” Bailey said. “He gave us some confidence that he was going to get the job done and we just had to stick with it and hope to find a way to get it. We ultimately did."
Per NHL PR, Sorokin's 48 saves are the second-most in a playoff game in Islanders franchise history, trailing only Kelly Hrudey's 73 stops in Game 7 of the 1987 division semifinal round. Sorokin also holds the record for the third-most saves in a playoff game in franchise history, with his 39 saves in Game 1 of this series.
The Islanders have a 3-2 series lead, and Sorokin was in net for all three of the wins. The two losses belong to Semyon Varlamov.
Also, per NHL PR, this is the first time in Islanders franchise history that a goaltender has won each of his first three playoff games.
"Soroky has been unbelievable," said Jordan Eberle. "He's impressive for his first year, how calm he is back there, especially a game like tonight. Pittsburgh and the crowd on him, he stands tall. You need good goaltending if you're going to win, and we definitely have that."
The common theme from the Penguins' postgame interviews was that if they play the way they did tonight in Game 6, they believe they'll get the better result.
The common theme from the Islanders' side, though, was that they didn't believe they were at their best at all, and that they're looking to present a bigger challenge for Game 6 on Long Island.
The Penguins got off to the hotter start, outshooting the Islanders by a 10-5 margin at one point late in the first period, with Malkin's goal being the lone tally at the time. The Islanders made a push to finish the first period, outshooting the Penguins 5-2 in the last several minutes and getting a tying goal from Anthony Beauvillier in the final minute of the frame.
The Islanders carried none of that momentum into the second period and were outshot by the Penguins, 20-4. Bryan Rust's goal was all the Penguins had to show from that effort in the second period, and the Islanders players credit Sorokin for his work in preventing the game from getting out of hand.
"Key saves," Beauvillier said of Sorokin's play. "He kept us in the game when we weren't really on top of our game. He made some huge saves for us that kept us in the game. It was a big performance from him tonight."
Trotz called the win a "gutsy" win because they were able to pull out the win when they weren't at their best.
"I was proud of the group for hanging in there," he said. "What I liked about our group was that we pulled together and got stronger because it wasn't easy. It wasn't going our way. Instead of trying to shift the blame, we just dug in. That, to me, is what good teams do. ... That, to me, shows a lot of character to our group."
As the series heads back to Long Island with the Islanders having the chance to close out the series at Nassau Coliseum on Wednesday, the Islanders' hope is that their team will be able to pull together and dig in from the time the puck drops.
"We're just going to have to come off to a good start," Trotz said. "We're going to need our fans, we're going to need our building, we're going to need everybody to be going right from the get go. We knew we'd have to be really good tonight, and we didn't have enough guys good enough tonight. To get this game against the Penguins, you're going to need everyone to bring their 'A' game for Game 6. If we do that, then we have chance."