4
0
Lightning efficiently wrap up a key road win.
TB-4
NYI-1
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed one goal on 28 shots for the victory. He was forced to do quite a bit of work in the middle frame to make this victory as comfortable as it was for the Lightning.
First Period
8:46 TB Bjorkstrand (20), (Raddysh, Point)
10:57 NYI Horvat (25), (Pulock)(SH)
Second Period
8:09 TB Guentzel (38), (Kucherov, Point)
10:41 TB Hedman (14), (Kucherov, Guentzel)
Third Period
16:29 TB Paul (22), (Cirelli, Cernak)(EN)
Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov, and Brayden Point were the game’s three stars.
I thought the Lightning had the better of the play in the opening period but allowed themselves to get in some penalty trouble in the Second Period and were bailed out by a couple of good Kucherov looks on the rush that staked them to a two goal lead they likely didn’t deserve. That said, the most impressive thing about the game to me was the way the Lightning wrapped a desperate Islanders club up in blankets in the Third Period, giving them 10 of the lowest calorie shots you’ll ever see en route to snuffing the life out of their season. They needed that killer instinct to now even their road record for the campaign at 17-17-3.
Meanwhile, en Montreal, Sunrise pee’ed it down the leg twice in the span of about 38 seconds at the end of regulation and in OT to drop a point on the road to the Habs. So, with all teams having eight games left to go, Toronto hold a scant one point lead on Tampa Bay for the Atlantic Division lead with the Sunrise Cap Circumvention Hypocrites now one point in arrears of the Lightning. The Lightning also have a one game lead on Toronto in regulation wins and a big three game lead on Sunrise in that category so if this comes down to tiebreakers the Lightning may be in the cat bird seat.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
