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Trevor Daley identified Marc-Andre Fleury’s near-constant chatter during play and between whistles as one of his favorite parts of this still-early Penguins season.

Fleury “doesn’t shut up very much,” the veteran defenseman explained.

But during Thursday night’s 4-2 victory at PPG Paints Arena, Fleury might have struggled at times to make all of his playful remarks and sounds before another onslaught of shots from the New York Islanders left him scrambling and short of breath.

“I take a little pause, but I like to talk to them,” Fleury said. “I like to let them know when they make a nice pass, a good blocked shot, when they help me out around the net. It helps me stay in the game. It helps them stay in the games. It makes it fun, too.”

Acrobatic stops on close-range scoring chances and plenty of positivity by Fleury allowed the Penguins to prevail even as they lost track of Islanders in the defensive zone and pieced together underwhelming possessions for the game’s first two-plus periods. Fleury finished with 35 saves, and Jaroslav Halak turned away 31 for the Islanders.

Halak allowed a goal on the first shot he faced, a Patric Hornqvist offering 46 seconds into the game that finished a tic-tac-toe passing sequence by the Penguins on the power play. Halak then held strong for the next 50-plus minutes before breaking down in the game’s final 10 minutes.

Evgeni Malkin slipped a shot by Halak with less than eight minutes remaining in regulation. Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel then struck 32 seconds apart to put the game away.

“He was terrific, especially in that second period,” coach Mike Sullivan said of Fleury. “We were under a lot of pressure. We were on our heels in the second period, and he made some huge saves for us that I thought allowed us to keep the (1-0) lead. We’re giving up more shots and chances than we’re accustomed to, and he’s been there to make that timely save for us to give our guys a chance to grab ahold of ourselves and play the game the right way. I thought in the third period, our team responded really well, but I thought Flower was big in the second.”

Fleury turned away the first 27 shots he faced but lost his shutout bid with 4:47 left in the second period as Travis Hamonic buried a feed from Shane Prince on a two-on-one.

The Islanders’ other goal occurred because of a bad break for Fleury, who left his crease to collect a puck zipping around the back wall but failed to corral it after a stanchion led to a weird bounce. Prince found the loose puck and beat an out-of-position Fleury for a power-play goal.

“I shouldn’t have come out at the end of the PK,” Fleury said. “The puck hit the glass, came back in front. I felt bad because I should’ve just stayed in the net, and I would’ve been fine. I was happy to see Sid bury that (winner) for sure.”

New York became the seventh of the Penguins’ eight opponents this season to surpass the 30-shot mark in a game. Under Sullivan in the 2015-16 regular season, the Penguins allowed an average of 28.6 shots, and they often outshot opponents.

They have struggled to tilt the ice in their favor with any frequency this season, and the burden often has fallen on Fleury to clean up the Penguins’ breakdowns, whether they begin with a bad pinch in the offensive zone, an indecisive read at center ice or an ineffective dump-out behind the defensive blue line.

Examples of each miscue arose against the Islanders, particularly during a second period when the visitors outshot their hosts 17-7.

“He’s been very much that All-Star goaltender that he’s been for 10, 11, 12 years now,” defenseman Ian Cole said. “Watching the way he’s played recently, it’s certainly very special, the way that he’s playing. He’s obviously keeping us in games when we haven’t played our best hockey in some stretches of time now.”

Anders Lee, Casey Cizikas, Ryan Strome and Prince all came away empty-handed after attacking Fleury from high-percentage spots midway through the second.

“It was a lot of shots,” Fleury said. “I was trying to keep the score close and give our team a hand. It’s nice. Maybe to have less scoring chances would be good, too. But I know the guys are trying hard. I just try to help them out. They showed up for a solid third. … I know with the guys we have, we can always come back in the game and win it.”

Bill West is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at wwest@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BWest_Trib.