What a time for Thomas Hickey to score his first career playoff goal. With under eight minutes remaining in overtime, Hickey buried a puck by Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo to give the Islanders a 4-3 win.
It wasn’t always pretty, but the Islanders will take it. Like Game 1, Game 3 saw both teams trade a lot of goals.
Reilly Smith, who’s been phenomenal in this series, opened the scoring with his fourth goal of the 2016 playoffs (he finished the game with a goal and two assists).
Just over a minute into the second period, Aleksander Barkov extended Florida’s lead to 2-0. The Panthers followed that up with another goal, but Aaron Ekblad’s goal was waved off after a coach’s challenge (you be the judge).
Instead of it being 3-0 Panthers, the score remained 2-0...but not for long.
Moments later, Islanders rookie Ryan Pulock got the Islanders on the board with a power play goal.
Nick Bjugstad restored Florida’s two-goal lead just 2:02 later, but the Islanders closed out the second period with goals by Shane Prince and Frans Nielsen.
Neither team was able to win the game before the start of overtime. That’s when Hickey stole the show.