Belmont Park, Long Island. It took Sebastian Aho to put his foot down to break the Game 3 deadlock between the New York Islanders and Carolinas.
No, this is not Sebastian Aho.
It was the Swedish defender of the same name who fired the shot that Kyle Palmieri directed, deciding to fight.
– We deserved to win and now we have the momentum, says the blue and yellow ahu of Sportbladet.
It was so deadly that two Sebastian Ahus meet in one eighth of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Karolina has the Finn star and the New York Islanders are the Swedish back rocker.
The former is usually the one who makes the headlines, but on the boiling UBS circuit on Long Island night, “Seabass” – as the 27-year-old from Västerbotten is called – managed to steal the show.
The score was 1-1 when with only six minutes left in the third period, the home team got a solid play, and since they had scored zero on four previous attempts in that system during the evening, coach Len Lambert threw in a Swedish ahoo on the blue line.
Then she collapsed.
“it is very beautiful”
He sent, as he often does when he had the chance, a sharp, split shot straight into the mayhem in front of the box – and veteran Kyle Palmieri was able to master it.
– It’s very nice to be able to be involved and contribute to that group, especially at such a stage of the game. We got a lot of energy from that goal,” says Sebastian when we meet him in the dressing room afterwards.
You can safely say that. In the few remaining minutes, the Islands managed to pot three more balls – only one of which was in an empty basket – thus winning 5-1.
– We had a little difficulty with the endings earlier in the series, but now we got a little reward and deserved it, continues the Swede Aho.
– Now this is a series and we have momentum ahead of Sunday’s game. But we need to continue in the same way.
Solid scorer
And for the audience to perform the same frantic, deafening frenzy again. Notoriously passionate and raucous Long Island fans ensured that the first ever playoff game in the UBS fold had the same crazy atmosphere as playoff nights at the old Nassau Coliseum used to.
Yes, the atmosphere exceeded expectations. It really felt like the Colosseum, plus a few thousand others. You can’t say no to that, Sebastian smiles.
Karolina’s only goal was scored by Jesper Fast of Småland – who suddenly became as dangerous as Adrian Kempe.