Lightning at Islanders
The Tampa Bay Lightning look to build off a momentum-changing victory when they begin a quick two-game trip with a matchup against the New York Islanders on Thursday night. The Lightning rallied from a three-goal deficit for a 4-3 victory over Toronto on Tuesday after losing two of the previous three and lead second-place Boston by four points.
“We just thought, ‘Let’s stick to our game and how good it would feel if we come back and win this game,’” Tampa Bay left wing Alex Killorn told reporters after scoring the winning goal. “We played one of our better third periods in a long time.” The Lightning have split a pair of meetings this season against the Islanders, who won for the second time in 13 games Tuesday with a 4-1 triumph versus Pittsburgh at home. New York is 10 points behind New Jersey for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with nine games to go after a 2-7-4 stretch that followed two straight shutout wins. “We’ve just been struggling and it’s a hole you’ve got to dig out of,” Islanders forward Anders Lee told reporters. “I think we can finish the season strong and set ourselves up as much as we can for next season. That where we’re at right now. Just nine games of hard hockey.”
TV: 7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet, FS Sun (Tampa Bay), MSG Plus (New York)
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (50-19-4): Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy turned aside 27 shots Tuesday to break Ben Bishop’s franchise record with his 41st victory, and owns a .952 save percentage in six career appearances against the Islanders. Right wing Nikita Kucherov scored his team-leading 37th goal Tuesday and leads the league with a career-best 94 points - 12 of them coming in his last eight contests. Right wing Ryan Callahan (four goals, 15 points) suffered an upper-body injury in Tuesday’s victory and will not make the road trip that ends in New Jersey on Saturday.
ABOUT THE ISLANDERS (31-32-10): Lee boasts five goals in his last five games to push his team-leading and career-best total to 36 while fellow forward Jordan Eberle has reached 25 for the fourth time in his first campaign with New York. Captain John Tavares owns six of his 75 points in the last three games and Calder Trophy frontrunner Mathew Barzal has two goals and four assists in the last four contests to tie him for the team lead in points. Goalie Christopher Gibson (2-1-2) earned the victory Tuesday and has stopped at least 35 shots in all four of his full games.
OVERTIME
1. New York RW Cal Clutterbuck sat out Tuesday’s game because of migraines and is questionable for the Lightning contest.
2. Tampa Bay F Yanni Gourde is tied for the franchise rookie record with 24 goals and four of them have come against the Islanders.
3. New York is 6-for-13 on the power play over the last three games and sits tied for ninth in the league (21.8 percent) entering Wednesday.