Late goal does in Islanders

The Islanders got a look at what it takes to be a playoff team as their second-half slide only worsened.

Auston Matthews scored the tiebreaking goal with just under four minutes remaining to lift the playoff-bound Toronto Maple Leafs to a 5-4 victory over the Islanders at Barclays Center on Friday night.

Mitch Marner and Nazem Kadri each had a goal and an assist, and Nikita Zaitsev and James van Riemsdyk also scored for Toronto. Frederik Andersen stopped 29 shots to help the Maple Leafs win for the eighth time in 10 games.

“It was a good hockey game,” Islanders coach Doug Weight said. “It was exciting and really, for a 5-4 game it was pretty wellplayed. ... Yeah, a little bit of puck luck would be nice. It was a heck of a game. Guys battled but just fell short.”

Anthony Beauvillier had a goal and an assist, and Johnny Boychuk, Brock Nelson and John Tavares also scored for the Islanders, who lost for the 15th time in 18 games (3-11-4). Jordan Eberle had two assists and Christopher Gibson finished with 27 saves.

On the go-ahead goal, Matthews deflected William Nylander’s shot in front off Gibson.

Van Riemsdyk gave the Maple Leafs their first lead of the game — at 4-3 — as he put in the rebound of a shot by Ron Hainsey at 2:01 of the third.

Tavares tied the score for the fourth time as he got the puck at the right doorstep and beat Anderson for his 34th on a power play at 6:28. Tavares now has 80 points, reaching that number for the first time since he had 86 in 2014-15.

Trailing 2-1 after one period, the Maple Leafs picked up their intensity in the second and tied the score at 7:52 as Zaitsev’s pass deflected off Islanders forward Mathew Barzal’s stick and past Gibson for the defenseman’s fifth.

Nelson put the Islanders back in front on an odd-man rush as he got a pass across the slot from Andrew Ladd and fired it from the right facceoff dot past Andersen for his 19th with 9:15 left in the middle period.