Lightning's Jason Garrison scores OT winner in Game 4 vs. Islanders

The Tampa Bay Lightning again withstood an early push from the New York Islanders and pulled out another big overtime victory.

Jason Garrison scored 1:34 into the extra period to give the Lightning a 2-1 victory over the Islanders on Friday night for a 3-1 series lead.

Garrison took a pass from Andrej Sustr and fired a slapshot from the right faceoff circle past goalie Thomas Greiss. The Lightning won two straight overtime games in Brooklyn to move them one win away from reaching the conference finals for the second straight year.

"Sustr made a nice play over to me, on a screen I think, and I was able to find the back of the net," Garrison said. "That's a nice feeling. Any goal in the playoffs is big, obviously an overtime one is definitely a sigh of relief."

Nikita Kucherov, who tied the score with 38.4 seconds left in regulation in Game 3 on Tuesday night, evened this one at 7:49 of the third for his NHL leading eight of the playoffs for Tampa Bay. He took a pass from Tyler Johnson and fired a slapshot from the left faceoff dot past Greiss' blocker.

"He's proven he's not a one-hit wonder," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said about Kucherov, who had 10 goals and 12 assists during the team's run to the Stanley Cup finals last year. "Just continues to amaze. Pretty impressive."

Ben Bishop made 27 saves for Tampa Bay, including 15 in the first period.

Kyle Okposo scored early in the first for the Islanders, and Greiss stopped 20 shots.

New York came out aggressive at home for the second straight game, but again gave up a lead in the third period and is now loss from being eliminated.

"The last two games have been good hockey games," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. "That's how close these two teams are...We gave up five shots in the third period, maybe one chance, and they tie the game. You can't ask our guys for too much more."

Okposo, who had a chance for a second goal midway through the second but was stopped in close by Bishop, didn't take much solace in the team's strong effort.

"At this time of year it's not about playing well and losing," he said, "you got to win. It doesn't matter if you play bad and win, play good and win. You got to find a way to win the game and we just didn't do it tonight."

Game 5 of this best-of-seven series is Sunday in Tampa, Fla.