Let’s take a throwback to the last round. Another series with the Pittsburgh Penguins ended with the same Game 1 result. The fans chose a Kyle Palmieri overtime winning goal in Pittsburgh as the goal of the first round to breakdown. Thank you for voting and look for another poll after the second round.

Palmieri came into the playoffs under a lot of pressure. After being the Islanders’ big add at the trade deadline, he only scored two goals in 17 games. In Game 1, he matched that total. Palmieri opened the scoring in the first period and then finished off a 200-foot play to win it. It was his first playoff overtime goal in the NHL this postseason. Let’s break it down.

This play started with an all-important defensive zone faceoff win. Jean-Gabriel Pageau tied up Jeff Carter on the dot and Nick Leddy came in to support and win the puck back to Scott Mayfield. From there, the Islanders started their breakout. Mayfield went behind the net and sent the puck up the right wing towards Oliver Wahlstrom. Pageau and Palmieri cut across the ice to support. That became crucial when Wahlstrom and Marcus Pettersson both misjudged the bounce off the boards, allowing the puck to skitter free out to center ice. Palmieri grabbed the puck and turned up ice in a two-on-two with Pageau.

Palmieri dumped the puck in at the Penguins’ blue line, and Pageau went into the corner against Carter. After the dump-in, Palmieri muscled through John Marino on the boards. Marino went down, leaving Palmieri uncovered at the bottom of the faceoff circle. Backchecking, Pettersson didn’t see the collision so he instinctively went to the front of the net instead of to Palmieri.

Back in the corner, Pageau outraced Carter to the puck but only had enough time to make a quick pass before he got crunched. That pass was right on Palmieri’s backhand but a little too hot to handle and the puck bounced. Palmieri moved back to his forehand and sent a perfectly calculated whack to the bouncing puck that sent it into a tiny opening over Tristan Jarry’s shoulder. A bouncing puck like that is very easy to send ten feet over the net or miss altogether but Palmieri found a way to put it in the back of the net.

[sendtonews key=”1dSLDwGR4j-1343872-9119″ type=”single”]

The third line was one of the best in the first round for the Islanders. With the first line’s struggles, that line will be relied upon to create offense. If it can create goals from defensive zone faceoffs, that will help keep the Bruins on their heels in Game 3 and beyond.

John Smark