Game 4 Notebook: Isles Finish Florida With 5-1 Win, Advance to Playoffs

Playoff bound.
The New York Islanders finished off the Florida Panthers on Friday, winning their best-of-five Stanley Cup Qualifier in four games to advance to the NHL playoffs.
They capped the qualifier with an assertive 5-1 win in Game 4, officially reaching the 16-team playoff for a second-straight year. Anthony Beauvillier scored twice in the series-clinching win, while Brock Nelson and Mathew Barzal each finished the game with a goal and an assist. Semyon Varlamov made 24 saves.

"I liked our focus today. There was only one end goal. It was to be the better team today and win a hockey game," Head Coach Barry Trotz said. "There was no me in anybody, it was all we. Everybody was pulling on the rope. I didn't have any passengers and our bench would not allow anybody to be a passenger, which is a great sign."
The Islanders will have to wait until the end of the qualifying round to find out their first-round opponent. They will play either Washington or Boston.

ISLES AGGRESSIVE IN GAME 4:

The Islanders didn't want to just match the Panthers' desperation in Game 4, they wanted to set the tone in the close out game.
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They did just that, outshooting the Panthers 16-8 in the opening period and 38-25 overall. The shot-first mentality helped the Isles jump out to a 2-0 lead late in the first, as Beauvillier netted a pair of goals 3:38 apart (more on that below). The Isles lead easily could have been more, had Anders Lee not been robbed point-blank by Sergei Bobrosvky (33 saves), or Barzal been tripped on a first-period breakaway.
To underscore the SOG advantage, at one point in the first period, the Beauvillier-Nelson duo had accounted for seven shots, while the Panthers as a team had five.
Florida netted a power-play goal with 1:19 to play in the first period to make it 2-1, but the Isles took back the momentum in the second period, as Nelson reestablished the two-goal lead with a power-play goal at 8:01. As aggressive as the Isles were in the offensive zone, it didn't come at the expense of their defensive play.
Ryan Pulock, who finished the game with an assist, laid out for a tremendous effort to deny Aleksander Barkov a sure goal at 8:29 of the second, diving to get his stick in the way of an open net for the Panthers' captain.
"To me it was one of those defining moments," Trotz said. "Those are the plays, the commitment, the extra effort that wins you those inches."
The Isles poured it on in the third period, as Barzal buried a breakaway at 10:34 to make it 4-1. JG Pageau's empty-netter sealed the deal with 2:43 to play. Barzal's goal was his first of the play-in round.

C'EST BEAU!

Anthony Beauvillier put an exclamation point onto his series in Game 4.
The Isles forward scored a pair of goals on Friday afternoon, putting the Islanders up 2-0 in the first period.
Beauvillier opened the scoring at 11:32, catching Bobrovsky off guard with a backhander at the side of the net that banked off the inside of the goalie's pad. The goal extended Beauvillier's point streak to four games.
But the 23-year-old wasn't done. Beauvillier made it 2-0 at 15:10, one-timing a Barzal feed on a two-on-one to pad the Isles lead. The two-goal game marked Beauvillier's first multi-point postseason game of his career.
The two-goal game gave Beauvillier a team-high five points (3G, 2A) in the series. That doesn't include a bevy of additional chances, including a shot off the crossbar in Game 2 and a quality chance on Bobrovsky early in Game 4.

BARZAL BREAKS OUT:

Eventually the offense was going to come for Mathew Barzal, who looked like his dangerous self on Friday. Barzal scored his first goal of the series in the third period, snapping a wrister past Bobrovsky on a third period breakaway. Barzal also finished the game with an asisst on Beauvillier's second goal and had a handful of other chances, including a rebound off Bobrovsky's helmet in the first, and a nice dish to Derick Brassard.
"We've had some chances our line, but unfortunately we didn't get any buries the last game, so tonight we knew we had to step it up a gear and contribute offensively," Barzal said. "We hadn't been scored on all series, but at the end of the day, we're out there to create offense and it was nice tonight to get a couple."
Barzal is right, his line hadn't been scored on during the series - Florida managed three five-on-five goals - which was a testament to Trotz' defense-first mentality. Barzal called the Isles stingy defensive play - seven goals allowed in four games - the "expectation" which was music to his coach's ears.
"Mathew has continually made steps forward in his overall game," Trotz said. "He's realizing that to be a real top player in these playoffs - and he's had a good playoffs for us - he understands the importance of focusihg on the moment, which he has, getting his compete level really high and using his assets and puck management skills to do what he does and be effective. Today he kicked it up."

KOMAROV IN, KUHNHACKL OUT:

The Islanders made one personnel change ahead of Game 4, as Leo Komarov drew in for Tom Kuhnhackl. Friday was Komarov's first game of the 2020 postseason, as the Finnish forward, who was sporting a full-face cage, was unavailable through most of training camp after suffering an injury in Phase 2.
Trotz said the move was motivated by the Panthers' power play, which went 2-for-5 in Game 3, as Komarov is one of the team's more-used penalty killers.
"Obviously Florida's power play is tremendous, it's all-world, it's dangerous on every element and we felt that Leo is a veteran guy, a heavier guy than maybe Tommy and he felt he was ready... He was another set of fresh legs for us as well."
Komarov recorded 12:44 TOI (2:02 SH), with three shots, five hits and two blocked shots.

NEXT GAME:

The where is known, but not the who or when. The Isles will have to wait till Sunday to find out their opponent and then another day or so for the dates and times. After Montreal's series win over Pittsburgh, the Islanders are locked into the sixth seed and will play the winner of Washington-Boston on Sunday. Stay tuned to NewYorkIslanders.com for the latest updates.