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 Playing before a boisterous crowd at Nassau Coliseum, the Islanders earned their ninth time in 12 games while playing their final regular-season home game. The Islanders, 10-11-3 at home after starting 2-8-1, will begin a season-ending, five-game trip on Thursday in Toronto.
With a 14-5-3 mark since March 1, the Islanders hold seventh place in the Eastern Conference. New York, seeing its first postseason appearance since 2007, has allowed two goals or fewer in nine straight games.
Matt Moulson, Mark Streit and Radek Martinek also scored for the Islanders, who bounced back from a 1-0 overtime loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday.
Dmitry Kulikov and Marcel Goc had goals for the Panthers (13-23-6), who own the NHL's worst record.
The Islanders (22-16-5) came out flying, continuing the brisk pace they established against the Rangers. They outshot the Panthers 15-8 in the first period and took a 3-0 lead as the near-capacity crowd chanted, "Let's Go Islanders" and "We Want Playoffs."
Moulson opened the scoring at 8:01, tipping in Thomas Hickey's point shot for his 14th goal of the season. Streit made it 2-0 during a 5-on-3 power play at 13:59, ripping a shot past goalie Jacob Markstrom for his sixth of the season.
Grabner increased the lead with his 14th goal, another power-play goal at 16:47 as Panthers defenseman Erik Gudbranson served a four-minute, high-sticking penalty.
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Kulikov put the Panthers on the board when his slap shot on the power play eluded Nabokov at 18:12 of the first.
Martinek and Grabner scored 14 seconds apart early in the second to make it 5-1 and send Markstrom to the bench in favor of Scott Clemmensen.
Goc cut the Panthers' deficit to three goals at 7:44 of the second.
The 37-year-old Nabokov (21-11-5) has been in goal for 37 of New York's 43 games. He has given up more than two goals just once in his last 11 games. With 333 career wins, he ranks third among active goalies behind Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo.
The Islanders swept the three-game season series from the Panthers.
Florida reached the playoffs a year ago, losing in the first round to New Jersey. The Panthers have used 36 players this season, one in which they have been beset by injuries, particularly the loss of forwards Stephen Weiss and Kris Versteeg.
NOTES: New York C Casey Cizikas was forced out of the game by an upper body injury. ... Islanders coach Jack Capuano won his 82nd game, moving him ahead of Terry Simpson for second on the team's career wins list. Al Arbour is first with 740. ... The Islanders are 12-5-2 on the road, on pace for the best mark in franchise history. Their top road points percentage before this season was .663, set in the 1976-77 (23-10-7) and 1980-81 (25-12-3) seasons.
[Associated
Press; By ALLAN KREDA]
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