Florida Panthers win season opener, shutout New York Islanders 2-0 -NHL Match Update
Florida Panthers proved that their a changed team now by shutting out rivals, New York Islanders, 2-0, in the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season opener on Saturday, October 8, 2011, at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale,
New York.
Both goals were scored in the opening period during the final moments by Florida Panthers, who successfully managed to keep New York Islanders far away from anywhere near the net and their veteran goalie, Jose Theodore, who earned the 31st shutout
of his career.
"For me, we have a new feel, a new season", newly appointed Florida head coach, Kevin Dineen, said. "I liked the way they played tonight".
New York managed to pick up the pace later on in the matchup, but due to a sluggish start, they were unable to score and recover from the deficit.
"We got in the game better, but we certainly didn't have a good start", captain Mark Streit said. "They put the puck deep and forechecked us pretty hard. We had a hard time getting out of our zone. They came through the neutral zone with a lot of speed,
kept it simple and advanced the puck. That's the kind of game we want to play".
Stephen Weiss scored at the 16:37 mark off an assist by Brian Campbell and Tomas Fleischmann for his first of the regular season. Jason Garrison added another to extend the Florida lead to 2-0, on a 5-on-3 man advantage during the final 15 seconds of regulation
game-play.
Florida managed to capitalise on 1 of 5 power play opportunities while New York failed to take advantage of any of the three they were given.
For coach Dineen, the win means much more than just opening the season in a good way.
"(The win) will be more focused on my dad and my family back home", Dineen said.
Florida Panthers will be travelling to Pittsburgh in order to hunt down Penguins on Tuesday, while New York Islanders, who have the next three matchups at home before starting a two-day road trip, play Minnesota Wild a day earlier on Monday.
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