The Islanders burst out to a 3-0 lead with another slew of productive shots from the point, but the Florida Panthers steadily chipped away, like the Stanley Cup champions they are, climbing back for a 6-3 that felt oddly inevitable by the second intermission.
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It was a chippy game, with Scott Mayfield leveling A.J. Greer from damn near directly behind in the first, Matthew Tkachuk crosschecking Semyon Varlamov, and Niko (don’t call him Mikko) Mikkola crosschecking Anders Lee in the lower back as he lay prone on the ice after doing his best to avoid Panthers goalie Spencer Knight.