UNIONDALE, N.Y. – — It was a game of questionable calls and lucky bounces, the kind of things that tend to decide playoff games — and for a March matchup, this was pretty close. The Metropolitan Division’s top teams met Friday night, and the last time they had shared Nassau Coliseum was a playoff Game 7 in 2015.

On Friday, the Washington Capitals beat the New York Islanders, 3-1, to tie them atop the division, though New York still has a game in hand. With Islanders goaltender Thomas Greiss pulled for an extra skater late, forward Josh Bailey inadvertently put the puck in his team’s empty net, sealing the result for Washington. T.J. Oshie was credited with the tally at 18:32, capping a three-goal third period.

“We kind of felt going in that it was going to have a little bit of a playoff feel,” Oshie said. “Two teams with similar styles not giving up a lot. … We just kept pushing and found a way to get the win.”

It took the Capitals more than 43 minutes to get on the board, but they stayed patient and stuck to their game plan before Jakub Vrana brokethrough by punching a deflected pass past Greiss to tie the score at 1 with his 19th goal of the season. Then on the next shift, Islanders captain Anders Lee was called for interference, awarding Washington its first power play. Just 13 seconds in, captain Alex Ovechkin scooped up the rebound of Oshie’s shot, and the puck fortuitously deflected off a New York stick before taking a high hop over Greiss and into the net for the go-ahead goal.

Ovechkin’s on an eight-game point streak with seven goals and four assists in that span, and that was his league-leading 45th goal of the season. He has 10 career 45-goal campaigns, more than any other player in NHL history.

“I didn’t know about that,” Ovechkin said. “The guys told me. Yeah, it’s pretty special.”

The Capitals had allowed the first goal in their three games heading into Friday’s, and they did so again Friday. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov made an ill-advised cross-ice pass exiting Washington’s zone, and it was picked off by forward Tom Kuhnhackl, who casually skated toward goaltender Braden Holtby and scored on a backhand 2:43 into the game. New York’s Leo Komarov appeared to be offside on the play, but the Capitals didn’t challenge the goal.

That’s because the play was considered a delayed offside, and a near-identical scenario was upheld against the Capitals in a game against the Minnesota Wild two years ago. On the zone entry, the puck was indeed across the blue line before Komarov tagged up — and it was on the linesman to blow the play dead at that time — but Kuhnhackl never touched the puck as it went across the line. Komarov then tagged up and made the play onside. In an intermission interview with MSG Network, Kuhnhackl acknowledged that he thought the play was offside.

“I knew it was close, but I kept kind of playing it,” Holtby said. “And then he stopped skating, our guy stopped skating, the crowd went silent, it just kind of froze me a little bit. I didn’t know what was going on. It was strange play; it almost looked like he thought the whistle had blown or something. It was weird. Luckily, it didn’t hurt us.”

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