Florida Panthers vs NY Islanders 8/1/20 - NHL Picks & Predictions

On Saturday, the Florida Panthers will play the New York Islanders in Game 1 of their best-of-five Stanley Cup qualifying series. Florida hopes to reach the NHL postseason for the first time in the last four years and played well during the first half of the NHL season under Coach Joel Quenneville. Florida was riding a six-game winning streak when the season broke for the All-Star game but were 6-9-3  during their final 18 games prior to the season being suspended.

Aleksander Barkov has become one of the top two-way centers in the NHL for Florida and is expected to play as many shifts as possible when New York's Mathew Barzal is on the ice. Barkov had 20 goals and 42 assists over 68 games before the season was suspended which was second for the Panthers behind just Jonathan Huberdeau who had 78 points. However, over the final six games prior to the coronavirus break, Barzal did not score a point and that trend must be reversed if the Panthers hope to reach the postseason.

During the regular season prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the Islanders defeated the Panthers in each of the three games they played head-to-head. New York was 6-8-5 over 19 games following the NHL All-Star Game break prior to the season being halted on March 12. The Islanders defense is ninth in the NHL in goals against at 2.79 as they allow very few shots on net and were leading the NHL in blocked shots with 1,153 prior to the break

Mathew Barzal is the Islanders most dangerous player on offense and was leading New York in scoring during the regular season with 19 goals and 41 assists. Barzal, in his first experience in an NHL postseason, last season was second in scoring for the Islanders with seven points scoring two goals and adding five assists and scored one point or more and six of the eight Islanders playoff games.