By Rob Simpson
Special to NYI Hockey Now
Editors Note: Rob Simpson will be providing coverage from inside the Toronto bubble throughout the playoffs for NYI Hockey Now and the Hockey Now network of sites.
TORONTO — Gotta love the back-to-backs. No seriously, the Islanders are loving this.
Playing on consecutive days or nights is much-maligned during an NHL regular season. Hustle out of one rink, bus to the airport, a charter to another city, jump into bed and be ready to go in way less than 24-hours. In this case, it’s joy-joy.
The Islanders took at 2-0 Qualifying Series lead against the Florida Panthers with a 4-2 win Tuesday afternoon and they get to strap ‘em on again for a noon start Wednesday. No sweat. Win, very few media responsibilities, change clothes, walk through a tunnel to your hotel and settle in for a night of hockey watching or card playing.
No muss, no fuss.
The Islanders can also relish the fact that their offense woke up. The top line of Anders Lee, Matt Barzal and Jordan Eberle mustered a whopping total of two shots in Game 1. This time out, in just about the same amount of ice time (Barzal played an extra two minutes in comparison), they fired 12 shots on goal and ended up with two goals and an assist.
The entire group was what hockey people like to refer to as “opportunistic”.
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky appeared to be on his game, but when Florida bumbled in their own end, New York took advantage.
One of those occasions brought the tying 1-1 goal at 6:12 of the second period for Matt Martin. With two discombobulated Cats, Brian Boyle and Keith Yandle, eliminating one another in the right-wing face-off circle, Tom Kuhnhackl made a nifty drop pass to Martin all alone in front. Similar hijinks for Florida on Jordan Eberle’s goal at 16:27 of the 2nd period which gave the Islanders the lead for good at 3-2.
A lost stick and lost assignments allowed Eberle to take a cross-slot pass from Ryan Pulock, step down low, juke rookie defender Brady Keeper out of his jock, and rip one short side on Bob.
“Bob is such a good goalie at getting across,” Eberle pointed out. “He’s quick enough to beat you there. You never have a clean shot against him so when you do you have to make good of it.”
At that point, the proverbial writing was on the wall.
The Islanders were defiantly confident while the air was whistling its way out of the Panthers self-confidence balloon. They went droopy.
The perfect capper was the nice bounce off Eberle’s shinpad on the insurance goal. Standing by the left post, he had Anthony Beauvillier’s scorcher carom in past a helpless Bob for the 4-2 final.
More good news came with the power play. The Islanders were middle of the pack on the PK this season and worse than on the power play, but when a team continues to parade to the penalty box, every NHL team is capable of making the other one pay. Two-for-seven for New York.
“Tonight obviously some big goals,” said Ryan Pulock, who scored a power-play goal in 4:14 on the man advantage. “I think even when we didn’t score we were able to kind of get some momentum and some control over it.”
At the other end, in the most important position on the ice, Semyon Varlamov seemed just as sharp as Bob, although he faced less Grade-A chances.
Mike Hoffman’s goal in the first period came through heavy traffic just after a Florida power play ended, and Sasha Barkov’s marker in the 2nd was a beauty just under the bar. Varly made 26 saves to go with the 27 he made on Saturday.
Two down, one to go.
“Their life is essentially on the line tomorrow,” Matt Martin said. “They’re gonna throw everything they have at us. We have to come out and play our game and try to neutralize their high-end skill, make it hard on them. That’s more or less been the plan all along. We’ve got a pretty mature group in here. We’ve been through some playoff series in the past, (including) against them. We just have a 60-minute game tomorrow. Find a way to get a win and close this thing out.”
Hub Notes:
It might as well be the North Pole in January inside the Scotiabank Arena. They’re pumping the air conditioning apparently in an attempt to keep the August ice nice and chilly. It doesn’t appear to be working. Both teams are dealing with a choppy surface and the lack of fancy/clever passes is noticeable. Meanwhile, my hands are shivering and my teeth are chattering as I type this.
— A fan asked during the game on social media about the fake fan sound effects being piped in and what the origins were. It is not being done on your TV, it’s being done here in the rink. There is a steady stream of fan “white noise” which crescendos when a shot is taken or a big save is made. Apparently someone up in the press box, being utilized exclusively by league personnel, has buttons in the DJ booth that manipulate the level of synthetic sound. We the media are set-up and spread very far apart in the upper seating bowl one level down.
— Bob and Varly were Russia’s goaltenders when they hosted the Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
