In Toronto, Tyler Pitlick gave the Philadelphia Flyers a 1-0 lead i the first period of their Game 3 with the New York Islanders.
Problem for the Flyers was that was the extent of their offense as the Isles scored three unanswered goals in a 3-1 win and 2-1 series lead.
“I thought we came out real well, loved our pace for that first 10, 12 minutes,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “I think we were playing the type of game that we wanted to play. Then somehow, we just lost it. We stopped being first on pucks, our players stopped making the plays that we needed to make with the puck. They slowly but surely found momentum for the remainder of the first period, and most of the second period they were the much better team.”
Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves to get the win.
“Guys are frustrated,” the Flyers’ Claude Giroux said. “I think we need to take that frustration and bring it as energy and if we do that, we’re going to be in a good spot tomorrow.”
Leo Komarov scored what would be the game-winner in the middle frame.
“It was an important game for us and for our team and for me especially after Game 2; I know I didn’t play well,” Varlamov said. “I gave up three quick goals, but it happens, you know? Nothing goes perfect, especially like in the playoffs, there’s a lot of games. You lose today, you win tomorrow. I learned from mistakes, move on.
Matt Martin tied the game up with a goal earlier in the second period.
“We didn’t have a good first period, they got to their game and kind of took it to us for a little while,” Martin said. “I think the intermission was good to kind of regroup. Last 10 minutes of the first was decent, but we knew we had to come out with a strong second and we took the game over from there.”
Anders Lee added a power play strike early in the third period to give the Isles some insurance.
“You talk about getting everything thrown at you, everything from this pandemic, this restart, the Phase 1, the Phase 2, the Phase 3, the bubble, the social issues that have been involved, the days off, the changes of schedule, our group is coming in and understood it would be different, and whatever is thrown at us we won’t waver,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “I think that mindset has paid dividends for us, even if we get scored on early or don’t have a great stretch of a period or two periods, that you just get back on track and identify what we need to do to have success, and they’ve done a really good job and that comes from really good focus and really good preparation by them and really good understanding and direction from inside the room.”
[WATCH:All Flyers vs. Islanders highlights]
Carter Hart made 26 saves.
“We came out strong, we got that first goal, things were going well,” Giroux said. “Second period, it wasn’t our best hockey and they were able to get a few goals there.”
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