Sunday’s calendar in the National Hockey League helped to see once again how different hockey can be in the Stanley Cup. Immediately after the next fiery battle between Dallas and Colorado (9 goals, a lot of power, a funny plot), the Islanders and Philadelphia came out on the ice – perhaps the most pragmatic teams of this
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For a long time, the main event of the meeting was the warm-up. The Swedish Flyers forward Oscar Lindblum took part in it – in December the Scandinavian was diagnosed with bone cancer, but after 9 months he returned to the ice in the Stanley Cup game. More precisely – before the game, because after rolling Lindblum went to the podium. But his full comeback is getting closer, the 24-year-old hockey player is performing a real feat before our eyes.
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Lindblum’s partners with feats at first were much worse. Alain Vignot and Barry Trotz were able to surprise by simultaneously leaving the main goalkeepers on the bench – Carter Hart was replaced by Brian Elliott, and Semyon Varlamov gave way to Thomas Griss. The amount of work for backups in the first period was very different – the Islanders threw the opponent 18-7, was much closer to the goal, but Elliott made it clear that they trusted him for a reason.
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Vigno found not only the right goalkeeper for this match, but also the right words for his team at half-time. After him, “Philadelphia” squeezed the initiative and began to actively load Griss with work. And, ironically, she missed it almost immediately. Philip Myers scored with an exit from his zone, the puck was intercepted by Josh Bailey, who promptly delivered it to Brock Nelson. Nice pause, perfect shot, 1: 0!
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The “pilots” ran to recoup, but spent a long time only trying to improve Griss’s statistics. The German dragged and made believe that one puck could be enough for his team to win.
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Sean Couturier saved everyone from this feeling – the first three of Philadelphia in the current
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It seemed that in the third twenty minutes the teams would become even more cautious, but Barry Trotz’s gang from the first seconds began to press down on the opponent and in the first few attacks they created more than 40 minutes before. Jonathan Eberle almost created a masterpiece, Adam Pelek checked the barbell – the Islanders were clearly not going to play overtime.
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Pushed them away from extra time
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Well, and then New York pulled off their favorite trick – they allowed the opponent to attack a little more, endured his mistake and punished severely for it. The Flyers conceded a 2-on-1 counterattack, and Ivan Provorov could not prevent Bailey and Nelson from exchanging passes and driving the puck into the goal. 1: 3 in the game against the Islanders – the situation, if not hopeless, then the most difficult.
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It took Philadelphia a long time to get ready for the final assault. For the first time, Vigno’s team was able to gain a foothold in the Islanders zone only a couple of minutes before the siren. However, the remaining time of the Flyers was enough to add validol to the end of this match – Ivan Provorov struck Griss with a blue throw and gave the Pilots fans hope.
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But Trotz’s team spent the last 65 seconds of the meeting very calmly and are now leading in the series with a score of 3-1. Alexander Ovechkin is enjoying his vacation with might and main – swimming in the pool, training the dog, and his former trainer goes step by step to the Stanley Cup. The Islanders had almost guaranteed a conference finale.
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