The Philadelphia Flyers continued their strong play despite noting to play for on the final night of the campaign.
With the wild card spot locked up on Saturday, the Flyers visited the New York Islanders in Brooklyn and handed the Isles a 5-2 loss that left the hosts in a wild card spot, unable to leapfrog the New York Rangers for third in the division.
Michal Neuvirth got the win Brooklyn – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
New York now gets the Florida Panthers in the first round.
“We have to do what’s best for us,” Isles coach Jack Capuano said. “Nothing would have changed with our hockey club. We have some guys that are dinged up, and we have to do what’s best for our team. That wouldn’t have changed one thought process of our decision making as a staff. Not at all.”
Nikolay Kulemin and Matt Martin scored for the Islanders.
Shayne Gostisbehere, Evgeny Medvedev, Michael Raffl, Scott Laughton and R.J. Umberger were Philadelphia’s goal scorers.
“We’re playoff-bound and we’ve got some guys that are banged up, some important pieces that you don’t want to risk an injury in a game like this,” Martin said. “I think every team in the League does it. [The Flyers] rested guys tonight also.”
Michal Neuvirth got the start in the Flyers’ net and made 14 saves for the win.
“It was nice to get him in,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “He’s been ready to go for the last few days, so to be able to get him into the net and get a good 60 minutes of game action I think is as important as he prepares for next week as well.”
Had the Islanders won they would be facing the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round rather than the Panthers.
“I think it’s a slippery slope when you try to choose opponents and routes and stuff like that; you start looking ahead,” Islanders right wing Cal Clutterbuck said. “I think it’s important to just kind of stay in the today, in the moment and do what’s best for the team. I think the decision was made that was best for us today. We’ve got Florida and [Monday] morning we’ll start thinking about that.”
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