NHL Playoff Friday: Greg Frank picks Islanders vs Panthers — will a good defense always beat a good offense?

Islanders (-130) @ Panthers (5)

Pick: Islanders -130

Outside of the third period on Wednesday, New York has undoubtedly been the better team in this series. Sergei Bobrovsky kept Florida in the game early on in Game 3 and the Panthers finally found some offense in the final 20 minutes burying a pair of goals to turn a 1-1 score into a 3-1 lead and held on to win 3-2. The Panthers have scored six goals in three games and as I referenced, two of them were in the third period of the last game. For a team that was sixth in the NHL in goals scored, that simply isn’t enough. Islanders coach Barry Trotz is an excellent defensive-minded coach and his mixture of youth and veterans on the back end combined with good goaltending from Semyon Varlamov has stymied Florida’s fire power up front. There’s really no reason to think that will change now. At five, the total suggests we’re going to get another low-scoring game in this series, and in the postseason good defense always beats good offense. We’ll lay the price to back the Islanders.