Islanders snag gritty win over Panthers thanks to Semyon Varlamov
SUNRISE, Fla. — A year ago at this time, the Islanders got into the playoffs mostly because Ilya Sorokin could keep them in games night after night.
Sorokin hasn’t been able to do that in the same way this season.
But Semyon Varlamov certainly did on Thursday night in South Florida, where the Islanders came away 3-2 winners over the Panthers in a match where they were pretty well outplayed by last year’s Eastern Conference champions.
The 27-save performance from Varlamov not only gave the Islanders a must-have two points to stay relevant in the playoff chase, but brought into further focus something that has been brewing for a few weeks now.
The case for riding Varlamov — and not Sorokin — down the stretch is growing stronger with every game.
“Felt really good,” Varlamov said. “It’s amazing to win, especially here in Florida against one of the best offensive teams in the NHL. It’s a great feeling.”
Varlamov, having started just his 21st game of the season Thursday, is much fresher than Sorokin, who has started 117 games since last October, postseason included.
And at least at the moment, he is playing better than the netminder who has lost his last six starts with an .881 save percentage over the duration.
Thursday was the exact sort of game the Islanders have needed from one of their goalies all season — stealing one in a game against superior opposition — on a night where every single one of their rivals in the playoff chase lost, bringing them within four points of the second wild-card spot.
“Stellar,” Ryan Pulock said of Varlamov. “Playing the puck, seeing the puck, making the saves. I thought he was a brick wall back there for us.”
The Panthers looked good all night at five-on-five, owning the possession battle and forcing the Islanders to play defend-and-counterattack hockey.
For long stretches, especially early in the night, this looked every bit like one team in the Presidents’ Trophy fight and another in the wild-card fight.
But instead of succumbing, the Islanders took every punch and answered with one of their own.
Even as the Islanders took a 3-2 lead into the final period, finding some offensive success in being physical with Anthony Stolarz, the game did not at all appear safe.
And when the Panthers went on the power play 9:17 into the final period following a lengthy delayed penalty, the goaltender had his shining moment with a pad save on Sam Reinhart’s shot that appeared destined for the back of the net.
“The mind is the same,” Varlamov said. “Just continue to battle no matter what.”
Despite their possession advantage, the Panthers were kept to the outside for much of the first two periods.
That was not the case in the third, when Florida started coming in waves.
The Islanders got their reprieve with 5:31 to go when Sam Reinhart was called for a double-minor high stick on Cal Clutterbuck.
The power play — which struggled all night in a scoreless 12 minutes of ice time — could not come up with an insurance goal, but it did bleed a crucial four minutes off the clock in which the Islanders were not scrambling to defend.
And when the Panthers went six-on-five following the penalty’s expiration, the Islanders had enough legs left to do just that, with more help from their goaltender.
“I liked that at different times, there was different guys that took it upon themselves to go out there and have a big shift or make a big play,” Clutterbuck said after becoming the first NHL player to record 4,000 hits. “And I think that’s what you need. You need different guys in the lineup going out there and making a big play when it seems like the other team’s coming on.”
The Islanders appeared to undergo a classic spiral in the first period when Vladimir Tarasenko’s opening goal almost immediately followed an apparent Pulock tally being negated for goaltender interference.
But just five minutes later, Pulock made up for it, sniping one past Stolarz to tie the game at the 13:20 mark.
Another chance to fritter the game away came early in the second, when Aleksander Barkov put in a backdoor feed from Reinhart 6:32 into the period, right after the Islanders had failed to score on consecutive power-play chances.
Again, though, the Islanders refused to let go of the game, with Mathew Barzal and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scoring consecutive goals to give them a 3-2 lead.
That was the foothold the Islanders needed, as long as they could rely on Varlamov.
Thursday, that’s just what they did.
And now the question is whether they will opt to do so again on Saturday in Tampa.
