Matt Martin was supposed to be in the wedding party. Instead, he found himself at the center of a hockey party at Nassau Coliseum.
It was another improbable plot twist to the Islanders’ postseason story, one that after Saturday night’s 3-2 victory over the Lightning has the Islanders two victories from their first Stanley Cup Final since 1984.
Fans were plenty excited when Josh Bailey and Mathew Barzal scored second period goals to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead, while Martin and his linemates were busy doing what they do – hitting people.
But they were even more excited at 17:57 of the second, when Martin gathered a rebound and flipped a backhanded shot over the head of Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to make it 3-0, a goal that ended up being the decisive one.