For elements of Sunday afternoon’s recreation it was straightforward to marvel how these have been the identical groups that performed for a spot within the Stanley Cup remaining final 12 months, such was the distinction between them.
In different elements of the sport, one might wonder if the Islanders may by some means overcome what appeared an amazing pace and talent hole between them and the Lightning, and whether or not which may say extra about this group than the rest they’ve executed in a quietly sterling month of March.
After which the Lightning answered that question with a powerful no, beating the Islanders 4-1 at UBS Enviornment in a recreation that teetered till Tampa pulled away within the third.
“It’s positively irritating,” Anthony Beauvillier stated. “We have now group in there, good gamers, we all know we will do nice issues, win massive video games in massive moments.”
However not this recreation, not this present day and never towards this crew. Even when the Lightning present cracks, as they did for elements of Sunday, Victor Hedman continues to be Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy continues to be Andrei Vasilevskiy and so they can nonetheless punish errors.
The Islanders realized all the above in a decisive second interval, when — with a 1-0 lead — Hedman scored on the tail finish of an influence play with a strong wrist shot, Alex Killorn gave Tampa the lead after Beauvillier’s misplay on the opposing blue line led to an odd-man rush and Vasilevskiy’s lone mistake got here on a Jean-Gabriel Pageau objective that was overturned upon evaluation for offside.
“It adjustments the momentum,” Pageau stated later of the overturned objective. “Does it change our recreation plan, the best way we performed? No.”
That collection of occasions let the Lightning take a 2-1 lead into the ultimate 20 minutes, in a recreation the place the Islanders had largely performed them equal.
Within the third interval, the Lightning opened the hole additional, with Ross Colton cleansing up a rebound with 10:50 to go. The Islanders had an opportunity to drag inside one on a late energy play, however failed to attain, and shortly after, Mikhail Sergachev scored on a rebound to present Tampa a 4-1 lead.
Colton’s objective can be the second Islanders coach Barry Trotz cited later in saying: “The third objective sorta sucked the air out of our bench for some time.”
The query of the day then turned the standing of Ilya Sorokin, who had 18 saves earlier than being pulled with an upper-body damage within the third. It was unknown after the sport whether or not or not Sorokin would journey for Tuesday’s recreation on the Blue Jackets.
For the primary time since March 1-3, the Islanders have misplaced consecutive video games — a stat that, in reality, is a credit score to how they’ve performed for the previous 4 weeks. Sunday’s loss additionally snapped a six-game house successful streak.
The large takeaway from the weekend: The Islanders may be nearer to final 12 months’s kind than they have been earlier this season. They're nonetheless not shut sufficient, and no matter good vibes have come from their latest play will probably be overshadowed by that plan and easy reality.
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