NHL Playoffs
Isles Insights: Resiliency Shows for Islanders in Game 1 Win Over Panthers | NYHN+
Call it a textbook win for the Islanders. A 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers that saw their defense clamp down on a high powered offense.
It wasn’t without its challenges of course. The Islanders had to play five defensemen for more than half the game and the Panthers did push back in the second and third periods.
In the end, a 1-0 series lead is not a bad start to this bizarre NHL postseason.
Isles Insights
1. As Rob Simpson did an excellent job of pointing out in his column, the Islanders did a great job of holding off the Panthers high powered offense on Saturday. It was not an easy feat to accomplish considering that Florida was the sixth-highest scoring team during the regular season and seventh in average shots per game.
The Islanders limited Florida to just 28 shots through the 60-minute contest and only three skaters had more than two shots. Jonathan Huberdeau, who scored the Panthers lone goal, was kept to just two shots in 18:32 of ice time. Evgenii Dadonov had the same issue and Aleksander Barkov had three shots on goal.
The forwards Florida relies on for secondary scoring were held to even fewer shots on net.