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New York Islanders Look To Go Up 2-0 On Florida Panthers

By
Justin Weiss
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The New York Islanders are back for the second game of a best-of-seven series against the Florida Panthers on Friday night.

Following a resilient 5-4 victory over the Florida Panthers on Thursday night, the Isles have the opportunity to improve to 2-0 in their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series.

Just like last season, when the boys in blue and orange took the Washington Capitals to seven games, the Islanders have jumped out to a one-nil series lead.

This season the Isles are riding a different netminder — Thomas Greiss — and are looking to get more out of some of the new guys (and the new guys, ahem Alan Quine, Ryan Pulock and Shane Prince, have been producing).

While back-to-backs are unusual in the postseason, the Isles have been fantastic (9-3-3) in the second-half of these games.

The Rink Rats may be featuring a new blueliner tonight, as Michael Matheson is poised to make his playoffs debut.

“Young kid, skates very well, moves the puck very well,” Panthers head coach Gerard Gallant said. “Good young player. He’s going to be a real good player for us for a long time. He played two or three games this season and we really like what we saw. If he’s playing tonight, we really like him a lot.”

Projected Lines

ISLANDERS

Frans Nielsen  – John Tavares – Kyle Okposo
Nikolay Kulemin – Brock Nelson – Josh Bailey
Shane Prince  – Alan Quine – Ryan Strome
Matt Martin  – Casey Cizikas – Cal Clutterbuck

Nick Leddy  – Travis Hamonic
Calvin de Haan  – Johnny Boychuk
Thomas Hickey – Ryan Pulock

Thomas Greiss
Jean-Francois Berube

PANTHERS

Jonathan Huberdeau  – Aleksander Barkov  – Jaromir Jagr
Jussi Jokinen  – Nick Bjugstad  – Reilly Smith
Jiri Hudler – Rocco Grimaldi  – Teddy Purcell
Garrett Wilson – Derek MacKenzie – Shawn Thornton

Dmitry Kulikov  – Aaron Ekblad
Brian Campbell – Erik Gudbranson
Michael Matheson – Alex Petrovic

Roberto Luongo
Al Montoya

Storylines

  • The Isles regained a home-ice advantage with their victory last night. They can clinch at Barclays Center — even if they lose tonight.
  • Despite not having any prior playoff experience, Thomas Greiss stole Game One for the Isles. He made a fantastic reflex save on Teddy Purcell and then an extraordinary desperation save at the end or the contest Aleksander Barkov.
  • The line of Alan Quine-Ryan Strome-Shane Prince was phenomenal last night. Quine made his playoff debut, while both Strome and Prince (members of the same draft class) played very well.

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Justin Weiss
Justin Weiss is a staff editor at Elite Sports New York, where he covers the New York Islanders and Brooklyn Cyclones. In 2016, he received a Quill Award for Freelance Journalism. He has written for the Long Island Herald, FanSided and YardBarker.

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