Nassau Coliseum was so frickin’ loud at the start of Game 1 in this first-round series between the Penguins and Islanders, and it somehow got even more deafening 30 seconds into the game. Tom Kuhnhackl came right off the bench for the Isles and set off an explosion in the arena, as he fired a wrister past Matt Murray for the 1-0 lead. (The video quality is iffy but I grabbed from CBC because they seemingly had the crowd levels turned up to 11.)
Unfortunately, the crowd’s enthusiasm had to be stifled, as a lengthy review eventually determined that an Islanders player exiting the ice was just barely offsides when Kuhnhackl entered the zone.
But even though that call got nullified, Jordan Eberle made it all better again, burying a point blank shot on Matt Murray to restart the party just a minute after the cops shut it down.
It was Phil Kessel who figured out how to get the crowd to briefly shut up, scoring the equalizer four minutes later. But god, can you imagine how much worse this series would be if the Isles were playing at Barclays?