In Elmont, the Tampa Bay Lightning hung a 4-1 loss on the New York Islanders on Sunday.
Mikhail Sergachev and Alex Killorn had strikes for Tampa.
“Obviously, the last two years have been some great battles, and they’re still pushing and you can tell that they believe in that group,” the Lightning’s Victor Hedman said. “You know nothing happened at the (trade) deadline, they believe in that team. I probably would too. They’re a great team. They got all the talent and great goaltending.”
The Lightning moved to 41-18-6.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves in the Tampa win.
Brock Nelson was the lone goal scorer for New York.
“It was a pretty even game,” New York coach Barry Trotz said. “There wasn’t a lot of chances both ways. Both teams, I think, were playing with a lot of bite and a lot of detail. There wasn’t much room.
“They had a little bit of a push, but we were fine the first probably eight, nine minutes (of the third). They got the third, and honestly the third goal sort of sucked the air out of our bench for a while.”
The Islanders fell to 28-27-9.
Hedman had a goal for Tampa to tie the game, 1-1, after Nelson put the Isles up early.
“We could have been up a couple early,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We weren’t, and then we fall behind. When things aren’t going as well as you think they can and confidence becomes an issue, that’s when you have to strap the boots on and go back to work, and they did that.
“Nobody was hanging their heads. That was a big thing for us and (a) good result for us tonight.”
Ross Colton scored midway through the third period for a 3-1 lead to Tampa.
Sergachev’s goal made it 4-1.
“We had some time in the [offensive] zone,” Sergachev said. “[Nikita Kucherov] made a [heck] of a pass, and I saw [Steven Stamkos] on the back door. I was trying to finish it nicely. … I got a rebound and shot it and got lucky it went in.”
Ilya Sorokin made 18 saves through two periods of play, he left the game in the second intermission with an apparent injury.
Semyon Varlamov made 12 saves in the third period.
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