For all that madness in the final minutes of Wednesday night’s Islanders game, it was a few seconds of patience – that little bit of gritty ballet that Mathew Barzal calls hockey – that sealed the victory.
“Barzy in particular, I thought he set the tone,” Barry Trotz said after Barzal had notched the game-winning assist. “He was skating. He was dangerous . . . You wouldn’t know that this was [he and Devon Toews'] first playoff game.”
It’s only natural to be a little bit overexcited when it comes to playing in your first Stanley Cup Playoffs, but Barzal kept his emotions in check, especially when it mattered most.