The NHL semifinals kicked off Monday night with the Tampa Bay Lightning match series against the New York Islanders. The Finnish elements of the series? 34-year-old Leo Komarov, who led Iceland’s first chain between Mathew Barzal and Jordan Eberle. And it went well; The Islanders stole the first match and lead the semifinal series with 1-0.
Ahead of the semifinal series between Tampa Bay Lightning and the New York Islanders, the former team is considered a clear favorite. Tampa has several big stars, a solid defense, a winning goalkeeper and a toxic powerplay.
The New York Islanders have, in Anders Lee’s injury absence, Leo Komarov as a center in the first chain.
But when playoff hockey is played in the NHL, it is not on paper that the matches are decided, much less if you compare the density of paychecks. Gone are McDavid, Crosby, Ovetchkin, Draisaitl, Barkov, Rantanen, MacKinnon … With teams like the Islanders, Montreal Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights instead. Check out their player material – few stars, a lot of width.
The series is still far from decided, but the fact is that the New York Islanders only need three more victories in the series, while Tampa must win four games. The first meeting ended 2-1 to the guests from New York.
“We played our own game”
In the goal-free event, it was of course the goalkeepers, both teams’ Russian goalkeepers can be added, who stole the show.
Sergei Varlamov saved 30 of 31 shots for the New York Islanders, while Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevsky stood in the way of 29 of 31 shots. 96.8 percent for Varlamov, 93.5 percent for Vasilevsky. It is with such percentages that you win titles.
– We played well the whole match. We played hard, physically, our own game. I think that was behind our success, says Varlamov on the NHL’s website.
Part of the reason is that the teams also met last year, and also at exactly the same stage of the playoffs. Then Tampa won the first match by a full 8-2 and eventually advanced to the Stanley Cup final (and later the championship) with 4-2 in matches.
– I think this match was more reminiscent of matches 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from last year. The line-ups are about the same as last year and we play about the same, says Islanders head coach Barry Trotz.
Komarov on plus
The first period was goalless and the second period had become over half old when Mathew Barzal made it 1-0 for the Islanders.
In the third period, hill Ryan Pulock increased to 2-0 for the guests. Leo Komarov was on the ice during Pulock’s goal and was de facto quite close to touching Pulock’s shot from the blue line with the club.
Well, with the result in hand, it was better that Komarov did not hit the puck: now it became a safe goal.
Tampa chased furiously leveling, or even reduction, but had to wait until the last minute. Then the reigning champions showed their knowledge in numerical superiority with Nikita Kucherov as the prime mover. Brayden Point lifted the puck from close range – his ninth hit in this year’s playoffs. For Kucherov, the assist was the 14th.
– We had good work ethic and fought hard, but the sense of play was lacking. Some of our decisions were bad. At this stage of the playoffs, everything has to work out and we missed something today, says Tampa’s head coach Jon Cooper.
The match’s only Finn Leo Komarov played 13 minutes and two seconds and was noted for a plus in the minutes. In addition, he was responsible for four tackles, which was shared third most in the team.
According to the NHL, 68.7 percent are won of the match series of the team that won the opening match. Ahead of Game 2 on Tuesday night local time, the Islanders lead 1-0.
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