Sunday, May 8, 2016

Tampa Bay Lightning Take Care of New York Islanders Return to Eastern Conference Finals




The Tampa Bay Lightning became the first team to punch their ticket to the conference finals on Sunday afternoon after defeating the New York Islanders 4-0, in game five of their second round matchup.

The Lightning playing without their captain and leading scorer, Steven Stamkos, sidelined with a blood clot since early April as well as defenseman Anton Strahlman, out with a fractured fibula, have been able to battle through and go 8-2 through the first two rounds of the playoffs. The timeline on the injuries are one to three months for Stamkos and indefinite for Strahlman. 

After a grueling battle in the opening round with the Detroit Red Wings, the Bolts opened the second round with a 5-3 home loss to the Islanders. The Lightning were able to bounce back and take game two 4-1. 

As the series shifted to Brooklyn, games three and four were both overtime affairs with Tampa Bay taking game three 5-4 and then game four 2-1. The Lighting would be heading back to Amalie Arena up three games to one, with the chance to put the Islanders away in front of the home crowd. 

On Sunday, goaltender Ben Bishop, a candidate for the Vezina Trophy, turned away all 28 shots that the Islanders threw at him and defenseman Victor Hedman, scored twice to help lead the Lightning advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight season. Game four overtime hero, Brian Boyle and Nikita Kucherov also scored for Tampa. 

The shutout was Bishop’s fifth career in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and fourth in an elimination game. Two of those in the 2016 playoffs, as he shutout the Red Wings in game five in the opening round.
After the game Bishop said, “I think we learned from last year. We had a couple of series where we had chances to close it out at home and we let them slip. So I said last series I really want to take pride in closing teams out, and we have done it two series in a row.”    

In the final two games of the series the Lightning held the Islanders to just one goal, and captain John Tavares who was been on fire coming into the series, was held to just one point, a goal in game one. Tavares, one of the big reasons New York defeated the Florida Panthers, scored the tying goal in game six, with less than a minute left in regulation and then the overtime winner to send them to the second round. 

Following the game, he said, “Brutal. It is hard to believe it is over. You put a lot into this and we did not accomplish what we set out to do. We played some good hockey at times. We just let those two games at home slip away, and it put us behind the eight ball going into Sunday.”

On making it back to the Eastern Finals, Hedman said, “This means a lot obviously, we are a resilient group and we fought through adversity. I do not think a lot of people picked us to go this far, especially with the injuries. For us to play as we have on a nightly basis, and we have to keep that going for the next round.”

The Lightning now await either the President’s Trophy winning, Washington Capitals or the Pittsburgh Penguins to find out their next opponent. The Penguins currently lead the Capitals three games to two, as their divisional series heads back to Pittsburgh for game six on Tuesday night. 

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