The surging New York Islanders will go for their eighth straight win when they visit the Florida Panthers on Sunday.
New York continued its push for an Eastern Conference wild-card spot when it beat Tampa Bay 3-2 in overtime on Saturday, moving within three points of the Lightning for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.
Florida, meanwhile, will look for its third straight win after rolling past the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 on Saturday afternoon.
Tony DeAngelo scored 33 seconds into overtime to give New York its win. It was DeAngelo’s first goal since being signed as a free agent by the Islanders on Jan. 24.
“Everybody’s dialed in. Obviously it’s a four-point game if it goes the other way,” DeAngelo said. “Everyone knows where the standings are at and we have a long way to go, but these games mean a lot.”
Adam Boqvist and Kyle Palmieri also scored for the Islanders and Simon Holmstrom had two assists. Ilya Sorokin made 28 saves. Boqvist was playing his first game for the Islanders after being claimed off waivers on Friday.
“The new guys, since they’ve been here, they’ve brought a lot of energy,” forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau said of Boqvist and DeAngelo. “They seem to fit in really well and they want to be part of it to help us to win.”
Palmieri has goals in back-to-back games after a 14-game goal drought, while Holmstrom extended his point streak to three games with five points (three goals, two assists) over that span.
New York’s Scott Mayfield left the game in the second period with an injury and did not return, and Mathew Barzal went to the locker room in the final minute of regulation after blocking a shot. Coach Patrick Roy did not have an update on either player after the game.
Florida, playing just its second game in six days, found itself trailing 1-0 after seven seconds on Saturday as Landon Slaggert scored the quickest game-opening goal in the Blackhawks’ long history.
“Sometimes it gets you out of wading into a game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of the early deficit. “We were pretty good after that. Strong first period for us. Pretty good start to finish.”
Sam Reinhart had a goal and two assists, and Carter Verhaeghe had a goal and an assist for the Panthers. Captain Aleksander Barkov had two assists for his 200th career multi-point game, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves.
“It was nice to get the win,” Verhaeghe said. “We like where our game is at, we’re trying to build something here and get to our identity a little bit. We played pretty well the past couple of weeks and weren’t getting the results. But we’ve been sticking to our game.”
Reinhart became the first player in Panthers history to score at least 30 goals in four consecutive seasons.
Maurice became the fourth head coach in NHL history with 900 regular-season wins. The others: Scotty Bowman (1,244), Joel Quenneville (969) and Barry Trotz (914).
In the teams’ first season meeting, Matthew Tkachuk scored twice and the visiting Panthers rallied from three goals down for a 6-3 win on Oct. 26. Sam Bennett scored the go-ahead goal in the third period.
–Field Level Media
