The Islanders clinched a playoff spot tonight on Thomas Hickey’s goal in overtime, finishing a comeback from two goals down to win 4-3 at Washington.
More importantly for the blog’s purposes, Christopher Gibson came up huge in overtime, stopping Evgeny Kuznetsov on a breakaway early on, making a couple of other stops including what looked like a blocker save to deny Alex Ovechkin a hat trick. He finished with 29 saves to earn the win in his first NHL start.
Of possible Bridgeport concern, Brian Strait didn’t play after the second intermission, depleting further a banged-up defense corps. We’ll see what that brings, if anything. The Islanders do have a couple of recalls to play with, too, if they so desire for the last few regular-season games.