In Edmonton, Game 3 of the Western Conference Final may well have shown the value of, or perhaps the deep discount, of zero attendance.
The one thing seemingly missing from this post season, besides crowds, is the palpable sense of emotion. Tuukka Rask reportedly left the Boston Bruins, citing just that, lack of emotion.
On Friday night, the New York Islanders built a 3-1 lead after two periods only to see the Tampa Bay Lightning tie it with two goals on the front end of the third frame.
And this is where the lack of a crowd comes into play.
Tampa had momentum on their side but no juice in the building to drive them over the hump.
That same empty feeling in the arena gave the Isles a chance to regroup and get a game-winning goal from Brock Nelson in the waning minutes of regulation.
“It’s nice to get a bounce-back win (New York lost 2-1 in Game 2 on a goal by Nikita Kucherov with nine seconds left in the third),” Nelson said. “A lot of guys were big for us. On that play, [Beauvillier] made a nice play. Got stopped on the first one, but stuck with it and found me. It’s nice to get that win.”
Nelson scored with 3:25 left on the clock.
“This group is special with the resiliency,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “This is our fourth series, not our third (the Islanders defeated the Florida Panthers in four games in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers). We’ve had to battle through double overtime losses, a lot of different things. … That’s all we talk about. Focus on the moment. What can you do now? It doesn’t matter what you did in the past. That’s old news.”
Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves to get the win, despite being left defenseless for much of the game.
“It’s a tough one,” Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman said. “We’ve got to put this behind us, learn from it and move forward. That’s all we can do. We can’t change what happened a few minutes ago.”
Cal Clutterbuck gave the Isles a 1-0 lead, and Adam Pelech and Anthony Beauvillier scored in the middle frame.
“It’s always fun to win,” Beauvillier said. “When you’re able to contribute in it, it’s always fun.”
Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson and Mikhail Sergachev were the Lightning’s strikers.
“Obviously, whenever you play a playoff game, you don’t like your opponent,” Sergachev said. “You’ve got to be hard on him. You’ve got to take the puck away from them and score goals. We’re doing that by hitting them, playing physical, playing fast. I don’t know if it’s a rivalry, but they don’t like us, we don’t like them.”
Jean-Gabriel Pageau  finished the scoring with an empty net marker.
Game 4 of the series in Sunday afternoon, in Edmonton.
[WATCH:Â All Lightning vs. Islanders highlights]
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves in the loss.
“We handed that one to them,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “It was gift wrapped. … We hand delivered a couple [chances] to them and good teams will make you pay. That’s what happened tonight.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.