Islanders silence Lightning in opener
TAMPA, FLA.— The New York Islanders know they’ve yet to see the best of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vezina Trophy finalist Ben Bishop.
Shane Prince scored twice during a three-goal first period and John Tavares had a goal and an assist Wednesday night to help the Islanders beat one of the NHL’s top goalies 5-3 in Game 1 of the second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
The defending Eastern Conference champions pulled Bishop midway through the second period after the Islanders scored four goals on their first13 shots, one of them on a knuckler that fluttered through the sixfoot-seven goaltender’s legs.
“He’d probably like to have one back, but at the end of the day he’s going to bounce back. He’s a great goaltender. It’s a long series,” New York coach Jack Capuano said.
Taking up where he left off in helping the Islanders advance beyond the first round for the first time in 23 years, Tavares assisted on Travis Hamonic’s goal that erased an early deficit and later scored his sixth postseason goal on a blistering shot from the left circle to give New York a 4-1 lead midway through the second.
The Islanders needed overtime to get three of four victories against the Florida Panthers in the opening round. This one was never seriously in doubt after New York wiped out the 1-0 lead Tampa Bay took on Ondrel Palat’s goal just over three minutes into the game.
“I think our group’s got a great mindset, a lot of confidence, obviously,” Tavares said. “We’re all very familiar with one another and just want to keep rolling.”
Tampa Bay pulled to 4-3 on thirdperiod goals by Nikita Kucherov and Valtteri Filppula before Cal Clutterbuck’s empty-netter sealed the victory in the final minute.
“This is not how we wanted to start, but at the time same we’ve been in this situation before and we’ll bounce back from this,” Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman said.
“In the third we played a lot better and had opportunities to tie it up, but we put ourselves in a big hole. We almost got there, but being down three goals is tough.” Thomas Greiss, who won one game in overtime and two in double overtime against Florida, finished with 33 saves for the Islanders. They were outshot 28-10 over the last two periods.
Game 2 is Saturday at Amalie Arena.