In Tampa, the visiting New York Islanders were seeking a bit of pay back on Monday night.
That bill was left unpaid as the Lightning spotted the Isles an early 1-0 lead and the reeled off four unanswered goals in a 4-1 decision.
The lead lasted all of 23 seconds.
“We’re working for those chances and they’re not going in right now,” the Islanders’ Anders Lee said. “It’s one of those stretches where that could lead to frustration. I think right now we’ve just got to find a way to stick together, stick to it and eliminate some of the mistakes on the other end.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves in the Lightning win.
Tampa Bay improved to 8-3-3, the Lightning were 2-0-1 on the trhee-game homestand.
“If you’d told me that at the beginning of these three games, we would’ve taken that all day,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Those are the teams you’re going to end up seeing at the end and if you want to get there you have to beat these teams.”
Mathew Barzal scored the early goal for New York.
The Islanders dropped to 5-5-2.
“I liked the way we played, I liked how we were aggressive and we were hard on the forecheck and created some opportunities,” New York’s Andy Greene said. “We just didn’t get rewarded for some of them.”
Mathieu Joseph tied the game on the next shift.
“I thought we needed a good shift,” Joseph said. “Pretty good bounce in the middle of the zone. I had some time and space and tried to shoot it. I thought it was good to get that first goal back.”
Anthony Cirelli struck for the leading goal with 38 seconds left in the first period for a 2-1 lead to the Bolts.
Brayden Point pushed the lead to 3-1 when hit for a goal at 13:28 of the third period.
Steve Stamkos potted a power play goal with under five minutes left in the game for the 4-1 final.
“I thought we came out, we got the first goal and we gave it back real quick … way too quick,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “You want to take some momentum … build some momentum, you score and they got it right back.”
Semyon Varlamov made 24 saves in the New York loss.
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