Aug 5, 2020 3 min read

Brian Boyle and the Florida Panthers turned the tables on the New York Islanders by playing with more discipline and patience to avoid being swept from the playoffs.

Boyle and Mike Hoffman scored goals 2:47 apart, and the Panthers took advantage of several miscues in beating the Islanders 3-2 in Game 3 of their best-of-five preliminary round playoff series Wednesday.

“It’s rewarding for us because we’re putting the work in and a few mistakes have cost us so far,” Boyle said. “We’re not where we want to be in this series, but we can only control today.”

Erik Haula also scored and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 20 shots. The 10th-seeded Panthers trail the best-of-five series 2-1 with Game 4 at the NHL’s Eastern Conference hub city of Toronto on Friday.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Brock Nelson, with 1:27 remaining, scored for the Islanders, the East’s seventh seed. Semyon Varlamov stopped 19 shots.

Arizona 4, Nashville 1: The Arizona Coyotes knew they had a big opportunity once their challenge erased Nashville’s go-ahead goal early in the third period.

The Coyotes took advantage by scoring the next three goals.

Conor Garland and Taylor Hall each scored in the third period and the Coyotes beat the Predators 4-1 Wednesday.

Now the Coyotes, seeded 11th in the West in the NHL’s restart, can eliminate the sixth-seeded Predators in Game 4 on Friday in this best-of-five qualifying series.

Tampa Bay 3, Boston 2:Tyler Johnson scored the tiebreaking goal with 87 seconds left to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 3-2 victory over Boston on Wednesday and send the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins to their second straight loss in the NHL’s playoff seeding round.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 25 shots for the Lightning, who improved to 2-0 in the three-game round-robin. Tampa Bay, which was second in the East with 92 regular-season points, would earn the top seed with a victory over Philadelphia on Saturday.

Leafs’ Muzzin out of hospital: Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Jake Muzzin has been discharged from the hospital and is back at the team’s hotel, and will not return to the lineup during Toronto’s playoff qualification series with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Maple Leafs said in a statement that Muzzin will remain in quarantine within the hotel and “look to rejoin his teammates upon recovery.”

Muzzin was injured late in the third period of Toronto’s 3-0 win over Columbus on Tuesday.

With the Leafs killing a penalty, Muzzin took a crosscheck from Columbus center Pierre-Luc Dubois before stumbling and jamming his head/neck into the leg of Blue Jackets winger Oliver Bjorkstrand.