Aug 7, 2020 3 min read

TORONTO – Anthony Beauvillier scored twice, and the New York Islanders beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 to clinch an NHL best-of-five preliminary round playoff series in four games on Friday.

Brock Nelson and Mathew Barzal had a goal and assist each in a game the Islanders never trailed. Defenseman Ryan Pulock made a diving stick save to prevent Florida’s Aleksander Barkov from scoring into an open side to maintain New York’s 3-1 lead midway through the second period.

Semyon Varlamov stopped 24 shots, Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored an empty-netter, and the Eastern Conference’s seventh-seeded Islanders bounced back from a 3-2 loss in Game 3 on Wednesday.

New York will open the best-of-seven first-round series against a yet to be determined opponent next week.

Mike Hoffman scored his Florida-leading third goal and fifth point of the series, while Sergei Bobrovsky proved inconsistent in stopping 33 shots.

The 10th-seeded Panthers wound up one-and-done for their fifth consecutive postseason appearance, and eliminated for the second straight time by the Islanders. New York needed six games to eliminate the Panthers in a best-of-seven first-round series in 2016.

Florida hasn’t won a playoff series since making its first postseason appearance in 1996, when the team reached the Stanley Cup Final only to be swept by Colorado.

Arizona 4, Nashville 3: The Arizona Coyotes got a reprieve when the postseason was expanded for the NHL’s restarted season, only to face the distraction of their general manager resigning right before leaving for Edmonton.

More adversity hit when Nashville sent Game 4 of the Stanley Cup qualifier series to overtime with a goal in the closing seconds of regulation.

Resiliency has become a trademark of the franchise in the desert and the Coyotes found it when they needed it most, pulling out one of the franchise’s biggest wins.

Brad Richardson scored on a rebound in overtime, Darcy Kuemper stopped 49 shots and the Coyotes advanced in the postseason for the first time in eight years with a 4-3 win over the Predators.

“I think we’re all sick and tired of the Coyotes being out of the conversation and at least we put ourselves in that,” Richardson said.

Arizona was 11th in the Western Conference when the coronavirus pandemic halted the season, but earned a spot in the postseason when the bracket was expanded to 12 teams.

Chicago 3, Edmonton 2: The Chicago Blackhawks bounced the hub-city host Edmonton Oilers out of the NHL’s postseason tournament, beating them 3-2 at Rogers Place.

The Blackhawks won the best-of-five qualifying series 3-1 and now move on to the round of 16.

Brandon Saad, Mathew Highmore and Dominick Kubalik scored for Chicago.