In Tampa, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves and the Lightning handed the New York Islanders a 3-1 loss.
Andrei Vasilevskiy extended his point steak for the Lightning – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“You have to play different ways to win. You have to adapt,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I thought we played a simple game. We really didn’t turn the puck over, we didn’t give them much, I think we limited them to under 20 shots. … The boys cared about getting two points no matter how to do it even if it wasn’t going to be flashy, and that’s what happened.”
Derick Brassard had the lone Isles goal.
“It was a pretty tight game out there,” Brassard said. “That’s probably the best team in the League right now in the last month or so. It was pretty hard to get scoring chances. It’s too bad we couldn’t score a few, but I liked our effort tonight. One shot there at the end could’ve tied it.”
Brayden Point and Carter Verhaeghe created a 2-0 Tampa lead on goals.
“Their [second goal] bothers me,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “That was a lack of execution. Two of our forwards didn’t pick up their forwards and we gifted them in the defensive zone. That a was lack of detail that costs us a goal. And that was a huge goal at the end.”
Steve Stamkos sealed it with an empty net goal.
“These are the kind of games that shows the growth of our team,” Tampa;s Victor Hedman said. “We can win different ways, we can grind through games and sometimes it’s a high-scoring game. But these are the kind of games that you are going to see a lot down the stretch, so very happy with the way we answered the bell tonight.”
[WATCH: All Islanders vs. Lightning highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves in the loss
“It was hard to get through. We’ve got to be a little more determined to get to the net, but we did a lot of really good things. We were only one puck away.” Trotz said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.