The New York Islanders picked up a huge shootout victory over the Florida Panthers last night. Here's the game recap.
Denis Malgin opened the scoring for the Panthers just over five minutes in, taking a feed from Evgenii Dadonov around the circle and putting a one-timer past Semyon Varlamov. It was a quick play and would’ve been hard pass for the Islanders’ defense to pick-off and an even harder shot for Varlamov to stop. New York and Florida traded chances after that for the remainder of the period but none were overly significant.
Mathew Barzal gifted a great pass to Anders Lee from behind the net, who was waiting in alone in the slot and put it high glove side on Sam Montembeault to tie the game. This is the kind of playmaking the Islanders have missed from Barzal coming into the game– but if I’m Joel Quenneville, I’m livid that nobody picked up Lee, who was clearly alone for far too long.
New York was able to sustain some pressure after that, with Josh Bailey making a spin move to find Derick Brassard alone in front but Montembault made a great pad save. Later, Semyon Varlamov made some good saves on Noel Acciari to keep the game at 1-1.
The Islanders took the lead when Jordan Eberle found Josh Bailey in a similar spot to where Lee scored his goal and Bailey went high glove again on Montembault. Brock Nelson then had a chance to put New York up by two in the dying seconds of the period while coming down the wing but was stopped by Montembeault.
Barzal and Nelson had some great opportunities to start the third period but Montembeault came up big and it was all Panthers for the rest of the third, where they outshot the Islanders 14-5. Dadonov eventually tied the game with a great shot from the slot, going high glove on Varlamov.
The game went to overtime, where Brassard and Lee had chances but couldn’t beat Montembeault, so we continued to a shootout. There, Brock Nelson scored the lone goal on the first shot and Varlamov went three-for-three in stops, giving the Islanders a win.
This was a big one for New York. They improve to 2-3 and will have a chance to hit the .500 mark tomorrow against St. Louis. Semyon Varlamov was great. He stopped 35 of 37 shots and came up big in third period especially, as well as the shootout.
I thought that though the Islanders still didn’t even really get enough offense, this was the first game that Barzal looked like himself, willing to hold on to the puck until he could find the right play.
The Islanders play their next game tomorrow afternoon, as they host the St. Louis.
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OTHER ISLANDERS ARTICLES FROM OCTOBER
Game Recap (Game 4): NYI @ CAR
Game Recap (Game 3): NYI vs EDM
Game Recap (Game 2): NYI vs WPG
Game Recap (Game 1): NYI vs WSH
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