The Islanders were all brawn and no brains, but somehow finessed a win.

Unable to stay out of the penalty box and keep their heads above the physical play for much of the game, the Islanders emerged victorious after three unanswered goals in the third period propelled them to a 4-2 win in Game 1 against the Capitals at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon.

“I thought we just stuck to it,” Josh Bailey said on a Zoom call following the win. “They have a really good team, they got a good power play, they found a way to score a couple. We just wanted to keep working, I think that’s playoff hockey.

“You can’t get down in those moments, you just keep pressing. Tonight we found a way.”

The Islanders registered just two shots on goal in the first period, as they were too busy collecting 15 of their eventual 23 total penalty minutes. As the Islanders rotated in and out of the penalty box, Washington capitalized on two of its seven man-advantages.

But a late goal in the second period from Jordan Eberle cut the Capitals’ lead to 2-1 and shifted the whole trajectory of the game, pulling the Islanders’ focus from finishing the check to finishing the play.

On the first shift of the third, Anders Lee buried a rebound to tie the game 51 seconds in. It was the Islanders captain’s first point of the 2020 playoffs after going pointless in the Florida play-in series.

Just as the Islanders were finding their groove in staying out of the box, Leo Komarov was called for high-sticking at 5:51. But a pesky Brock Nelson stole the puck in the Capitals’ zone and found Bailey for a short-handed goal and the lead.

Anthony Beauvillier capped off the Islanders’ third-period scoring spree — three goals in 7:55 — by putting away a dish from Bailey at the left post. Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov turned aside 24 of the 26 shots he faced.

“I think honestly we knew how the game was going, we were generating chances and they just hadn’t gone in at that point,” Lee said of the mindset coming out of the second. “Going into the third, it was just that same mentality, keep putting a foot on the gas and keep getting pucks to the net. All the things that you talk about all the time. But I think just as a group we all settled in and played a smart period.”

Both teams came out of the gate like a bunch of heavyweights on skates. The physicality was dialed up from puck drop and escalated when Lee laid a hard shoulder into Niklas Backstrom, who finished out the first but didn’t return for the second and third periods.

Capitals defenseman John Carlson was the first to confront Lee for the hit on Backstrom. Tom Wilson challenged Lee later in the second.

On the subsequent power play, a scrum broke out in front of the benches after Casey Cizikas got tied up with Wilson. Matt Martin then took an ill-advised roughing penalty for cross-checking Alexander Ovechkin after the whistle. Wilson bailed out the Islanders and negated the final 40 seconds of Washington’s power play after he was called for interference on Adam Pelech.

Once both teams got most of their punches out, the pace of play turned up and led to dangerous scoring chances. The Islanders’ best opportunity of the period came at 18:50 of the first after Nelson took the puck from Ovechkin and finessed around Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov for a shot that went wide right.

Both teams seemed to settle down into the middle frame until Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby mishandled the puck and had to make back-to-back saves on Cizikas and Martin on the doorstep at 4:10.

Martin was then penalized for the second time for interference seconds later. A whacky bounce allowed T.J. Oshie to capitalize and put the Caps on the board at 5:27 of the second. Shortly after, Eberle was called for hooking to put the Islanders back on the penalty kill. Traffic in front of Varlamov resulted in Oshie shoveling the puck through for his second goal at 10:18.

With just under two minutes left in the second, Eberle was patient with the puck on the rush and wristed one right over the glove of Holtby to make it 2-1. That was all the Islanders needed to buckle down and work to stay out of the penalty box in the third as they completed the late rally.

“It’s nice to be up 1-0, but I think this group knows we’re playing a pretty good hockey team,” said Mathew Barzal, who assisted on Eberle’s second-period goal as well as Beauvillier’s in the third. “We can’t get complacent just being up a game or think they’re not going to come out flying the next game. We’ll enjoy it tonight, but we wake up tomorrow it’s a fresh series.”