ECF Rematch: Previewing the Lightning vs Islanders Matchup

A game hockey fans  have been waiting for since last season’s playoffs, the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders will be going head to head Monday night. The meeting will be the first since the Lightning defeated the Islanders 1-0 in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final, leading Tampa Bay to the Stanley Cup Final, where they’d eventually win their second cup in a row.

During last years playoffs, the Lightning and Islanders were by no means friendly with each other. Edgy play by both teams and lots of bad officiating, leading to a game 6 loss for the Lightning, really angered both team’s fans, and this is a chance for both team’s to turn this game into a very memorable one.

Top Players:

Lightning:

Like always, we’ll start with the Lightning. While usually, it would just be top players by points, it’s about time to show some love to the players who are under appreciated by fans. There will be one section for top players by points, and underrated players heading into Monday night’s game, as these players deserve to be appreciated.

Points:

Steven Stamkos: 7G 8A 15P
Alex Killorn: 7G 6A 13P
Victor Hedman: 2G 9A 11P

Underrated:

Mathieu Joseph (1G 4A 5P): Joseph has been quite the force on the Lightning’s offense, creating many chances and helping out the third line a lot. Without him, the bottom 6 would be a lot worse.
Alex Barre-Boulet (1G 2A 3P): While his points don’t look the greatest, the kid has only played for seven games this season. With such a good shot, he’s been able to get many great chances, and is an underrated prospect in the NHL.
Zach Bogosian (0G 1A 1P): Bogosian has played two games so far this season. He is recently coming off of injured reserve to play against the Florida Panthers on Saturday night. In these two games, we’ve seen some great plays by him, and he’s been a great depth defender for the Lightning. Bogosian registered his first point of the season with an assist Saturday night.

The offense for the Lightning has had it’s ups and downs, like many other teams, but they’ve played some great offense these last few games. They have been putting up many shots on net and have been able to finish them a lot better than they could to start off the season. If the offense can keep this up, things will look very scary once Nikita Kucherov returns in December/January.

The defense has finally been mostly figured out. These last few games have been great for the Lightning’s defense, which had struggled a lot to start the season. Losing Zach Bogosian hurt, and with the third pairing featuring Cal Foote and Andrej Sustr, it doesn’t make for the greatest duo. Both, however, have been pretty strong, but Sustr was just recently sent back down to the Syracuse Crunch. If the Lightning keep up these pairs, and keep the same strategies with changes every once in a while, the Lightning will look how they did in 2020 and 2021.

Islanders:

Now, the New York Islanders. The Islanders have had a surprisingly rough start to the season, currently sitting last in the Metropolitan Division and not getting a lot from their star players, including Mathew Barzal. With this, only the top players in points will be mentioned, not any of the underdogs.

Brock Nelson: (7G 2A 9P)
Mathew Barzal: (3G 4A 7P)
Anthony Beauvillier: (3G 4A 7P)

The offense has been lackluster for the Islanders, getting shutout by the New Jersey Devils the last time they played. This is most likely just a little bump in the road, but of the Islanders want to look like cup contenders, they’ll need to pick up the pace, because this hasn’t been an easy start of the season so far.

The defense has kept games pretty close, with Ryan Pulock playing well despite not having the start people thought he would. The only issue with this defense is that they need to stop the other team from shooting as much, and need to help a little bit more on offense, as offense has been a bit difficult to control this season.

Now to look at the goalies. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who will most likely start Monday night, currently sits at 2.31 GAA, .921% save, and a 6-2-3 record. Vasilevskiy has been playing very well these last few weeks, and it’s leading to the Lightning winning a good amount of games. Ilya Sorokin, who has started in 10 of the 11 games the Islanders have played, will most likely start Monday night, unless Semyon Varlamov is okay to play in the next game. Varlamov was out due to soreness from the playoffs, and didn’t start off the season strong. Ilya Sorokin sits at 2.18 GAA, .933% save, and a 5-3-2 record.

Predictions:

Score: 3-1 Lightning
Shots: 32 Lightning/25 Islanders

Top Performer: Alex Killorn (1G, 1A, 2P)
Overall Performance: A

Reasoning:

The Lightning have played very strong lately, while the Islanders have not. It will be a close game, but with the way the Islanders have played this season, it’ll just be too hard for them to play against a star-studded Lightning roster. Depending on who starts in net, things could easily change in the predictions, but this is assuming Ilya Sorokin is starting.

The Lightning host the Islanders at Amalie Arena at 7pm EST.