Scott Mayfield made his National Hockey League debut over a year earlier, but never before had he experienced something quite like this.
Following a 2-1 loss to the Hartford Wolf Pack on April 19 that concluded the Sound Tigers’ season, the Islanders recalled five players including the 22-year-old Mayfield.
But it was Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning who ended up with a 2-0 win Friday that sent the Lightning to the Stanley Cup Final, where they will face the Chicago Blackhawks or Anaheim Ducks in Game 1 on Wednesday.
The 2010-11 season was supposed to be a pivotal one for the Philadelphia Flyers prospect Patrick Maroon. A sixth-round draft pick by the Flyers in 2007, he was expected to make the jump to the National Hockey League.
Chief among these is the goalie match-up between Henrik Lundqvist and Ben Bishop.
First, we’ll look at the basics of each goalie. Then we’ll take a deeper look at the things that make this match-up so interesting.
“When they get tired, they start leaning on you a little bit,” Patrick Maroon said. “When we do what we’re supposed to be doing, there can be some long shifts down there.”
“Michael had a good senior year and a good college career after getting set back by injuries when he was a sophomore,” said Flyers scouting director Chris Pryor. “Our organization is going to evaluate where we’re at with Michael and then we’ll make a decision.”
Patrick Maroon almost chuckled when one of the first questions in his media scrum Saturday was about playing with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.
Patrick Maroon says it’s easy to fly under the radar playing on a line with a pair of world-class players in Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to stay there as the Ducks, and that top line, continue to win in the postseason.
Goaltending plays an integral part in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. NHL.com decided to break down the Eastern Conference Second Round matchup between Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens and Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Mayfield, the Isles’ 2011 second-round pick, spent the entire season with Bridgeport and was brought up after the Sound Tigers’ season ended to skate with the playoff taxi squad. But injuries to Travis Hamonic, Lubomir Visnovsky and Calvin de Haan — the last two in Games 4 and 5 — meant it was time for Mayfield.
