“Good Stuff” On Long Island
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
Only at Nassau Coliseum could the home team’s biggest goal since the New York Islanders last played for the Stanley Cup in 1984 be greeted with a golden shower. At least it was beer.
In any other National Hockey League arena, bombing your own players with beer cans is a dangerous sign of anger and unhappiness. At “The Coli,” it was a sign Wednesday of pure, unbridled euphoria.
Anthony Beauvillier, who hadn’t scored in 10 playoff games, intercepted Blake Coleman’s pass across his own slot and wristed a puck past Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy at 1:08 of overtime to give the Islanders a 3-2 win and extend the Stanley Cup semi-final series to Game 7 and, perhaps, extend the lifespan of the quirkiest, most antiquated, beer-soaked arena in the NHL.
And then it was Miller time.
Told a few days ago by coach Barry Trotz to fight for his inches, Beauvillier took a mile by completing the Islanders’ comeback from a 2-0 deficit in Game 6 against the Stanley Cup champions.
“It feels amazing, to be honest,” Beauvillier, the fifth-year Islander, told reporters. “That building coming into overtime was smelling like cigarettes and now it smells like beers. I mean, that place was going crazy. Everyone’s happy we’re going back to Tampa.”
“That was amazing,” Islanders centre Mat Barzal said after setting up the first two New York goals. “We got that first one and (the fans) just got riled up. And obviously in overtime, I’ve never seen anything like that. A little dangerous. You don’t see that too often, so we embrace it and that’s the Islander faithful. They’re passionate and they get excited. It was good stuff.”
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