Panthers picked up an overtime win against Islanders as grueling road trip continues

Among the hockey cognoscenti, a debate between process and results and which one is better gauge to a team’s success is being waged.

Traditionalists argue results trump all. Progressives suggest an intelligent process would lead to the desired results. But what happens when a team is trying to stressing belief in its process and get results?

You get what happened to the Florida Panthers, who deserved their 3-2 overtime win over the New York Islanders at the Barclays Center in New York Wednesday night. The Panthers improved to 2-3-3 with their first win since Oct. 19 against Washington. The Panthers conclude their three-game trip through the New York area Saturday afternoon at the Devils, before embarking to Finland for a back-to-back against the Winnipeg Jets.

“It’s almost like a snowball effect,” said Mike Hoffman, a few minutes after scoring the game-winner 33 seconds into overtime on a power play. “You (have) to start somewhere. You have to have a building block and go from there. Hopefully this can get us on the right track. We’ve been playing some good hockey (but) just haven’t been getting the results that we’ve wanted.”

In his pre-game media availability, Bob Boughner said he felt his team has “done a lot of good things but haven’t been rewarded for some our good play,” before announcing James Reimer would start for the first time since the 3-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 13.

And both the Panthers and their goaltender played well. Florida outshot New York, 41-22, in a game where both teams were conscientious to eliminate the middle of the ice. Which mostly left perimeter shots for Reimer and his counterpart, Robin Lehner to face.

Reimer stopped 20 of 22 shots, while Lehner made 38 saves.

“We got a goaltender performance,” Boughner said afterwards. “I’m going to be completely honest: Reims was terrific and (that) hasn’t been the case earlier on in the year. It’s been a battle so I know the guys are excited for Reims.”

Despite outshooting the Islanders 13-10 in the opening period, the Panthers trailed 1-0 because of Mike Matheson inadvertently banking a loose puck off Vincent Trocheck and into the net at 18:46 during a scrum in front of Reimer. Brock Nelson was credited with the goal.

If the Nelson goal can be described as fluky, Jordan Eberle’s power play goal from left circle with 8:20 left in the second was a laser which beat Reimer stick side. With Trocheck serving a two-minute minor for tripping Mathew Barzal, the second year Islanders star led a rush up ice before dishing to an open Eberle for his first goal since March 20.

The Panthers had absorbed two body blows, but didn’t fall. In the third period, though, they began punching back beginning with Frank Vatrano’s power play goal at 2:46. And Evgenii Dadonov’s even strength strike at 10:35 drew the game even at 2-2.

And it stayed that way until Hoffman’s game-winner, although that didn’t come without its own bit of adversity as the Panthers were assessed a bench minor for too many men on the ice penalty with 2:42 left in regulation. But as the Panthers were killing off the New York power play, Aleksander Barkov drew an interference penalty on Barzal, which carried over into overtime.

“I had a conversation with the referee,” Boughner said. “There was an issue that someone had a bad skate on the bench or something. It was a mandate coming down from the top that the league is not going to deal with that. You have to put your five guys out (and) we (were) just trying to sort out which guys they were. So a little bit of a miscommunication but it was nice to see we killed the first part of that penalty and got ourselves back even to 4 on 4 with the half breakaway on Barky.”

During his pregame availability, Boughner announced Roberto Luongo is with the team during its five game road trip. “He’s skating and rehabbing,” Boughner said. “I still think he’s week to week at this point.”

Associate coach Jack Capuano also spoke with reporters prior to the game. Capuano shared his thoughts on former Islanders owner Charles Wang, who passed away Sunday at 74 due to lung cancer. Capuano, who coached the Islanders from 2011-2017, and is the franchise’s second winningest coach behind only Hall of Famer Al Arbour, expressed his admiration for Wang.

“He gave me an opportunity,” Capuano said. “Knowing the man and how generous he was and how committed he was to the community. We all know he was a great owner. Players know that, the coaching staff knew that. But just the way he handled himself, he was an inspiration to all of us.

“He’s going to be greatly missed. It was an honor for sure for me to work for this organization [when] he was the owner.”

The Islanders honored Wang with a video tribute and a moment of silence before the game, and the players wore a white patch with the letters ‘C,’ ‘W,’ and ‘B,’ in black on their sweaters.

This story was originally published October 24, 2018 at 10:04 PM.