Head coach Barry Trotz mentioned he’d be excited about the Islanders’ loss to the Lightning within the 2019-20 convention finals on his deathbed. Effectively, now he and his workforce will get an opportunity to rectify that.
With a series-clinching 6-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night time, the Islanders superior to the Stanley Cup semifinals and earned one other crack on the Lightning. The rematch is predicted to start this weekend in Tampa, Fla.
Through the bubble playoffs final season, the Lightning despatched the Islanders packing after taking the sequence 4-2 earlier than occurring to win the Stanley Cup. The Islanders had been gassed after the Flyers compelled Recreation 7 within the second-round sequence, which led to the Lightning taking two simple wins to start out the convention finals in Edmonton.
The Islanders received 5-3 in Recreation 3 and pulled out a 2-1 win in double time beyond regulation in Recreation 5 to remain alive, however the Lightning finally superior. In six video games, the Lightning outscored the Islanders 20-12.
“We’ve talked zero about Tampa Bay, zero,” Trotz mentioned with a giggle after the win. “We began out this journey to beat Pittsburgh, and we had been in a position to try this. Then we centered in on Boston. We get a shot to go in opposition to the champs once more. They’re nice. I simply watched them shut out Carolina. That’s an excellent hockey workforce proper now, and a really harmful energy play, they’re getting about 50 % I feel, it looks like so.
“They’ve bought famous person energy, simply as Boston does. They’ve bought a number of traces that may harm you and a decent goaltender, their protection is extraordinarily deep and their forwards are extraordinarily deep. So this shall be an enormous problem for us, however we’ll attempt to dissect it and see what we are able to do.”
After a high-scoring bout with the Panthers within the first spherical this postseason, the Lightning cruised by the Hurricanes, taking the sequence 4-1. However this time round, the Islanders shall be far more rested heading into the sequence opener.
The Lightning completed third within the Central Division this season, behind each the Hurricanes and Panthers. However the group took benefit of the Lengthy-Time period Harm cap laws and now have a 20-man lineup that’s practically $8 million over the cap.
That’s with the addition of Nikita Kucherov, who missed your complete common season because of hip surgical procedure. He now has 5 objectives and 13 assists in 11 postseason video games.
“You need to beat the most effective if you wish to win all of it,” mentioned Brock Nelson, who scored two of the Islanders’ three second-period objectives within the win. “I don’t suppose anybody’s been sitting right here excited about revenge on Tampa. Simply taking every sequence one by one. Now we are able to flip the web page and switch our give attention to them.”
The Islanders have now received 5 playoff sequence, not together with the play-in spherical in opposition to the Panthers final season, underneath Trotz and normal supervisor Lou Lamoriello.
The group had mixed for 5 playoff sequence wins over the earlier 34 years.
