Tampa double up Islanders, 4-2 Vasilevskiy makes 32 saves

In Elmont, the Tampa Bay Lightning took 3-0 lead on the Islanders Saturday afternoon and then held on for a 4-2 win. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves in the win.

The Lightning moved to 31-23-).

“We knew how big these points were coming in for both teams,” Tampa;s Nicholas Paul said. “I liked our game. I liked our compete, and I’m happy we got the job done, especially considering last game. They took it to us pretty good (a 6-2 Islanders win on Feb. 8).”

Tampa took a 2-0 lead in the opening stanza.

“I thought that we played pretty well,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We took too many penalties, and it cost us. I liked our compete. … We can’t take the penalties that we took.”

Paul scored at 4:12 to stake the Lightning to a 1-0 lead.

Nikita Kucherov hit for a marker at 5:34 for a 2-0 advantage coming out of the first period.

“I thought defensively we were a little late trying to close on guys,” the Islanders’  Kyle Palmieri said. “The way our system works, we got to try and anticipate and be on top of our guys and take away time and space, and we were unable to do that.”

The Islanders dropped to 23-20-14.

“I cannot say we had a bad game. That’s what I said to them after the second period,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “It was tight out there. There was no room. It was like a playoff hockey game where there were barely any chances on both sides.”

Brayden Point stretched the lead to 3-0 five minutes into the middle frame, scoring off the power play.

“We’re just playing defense first then getting offense off our defense,” Paul said. “We’re creating turnovers and going the other way.”

The Isles rallied with a pair of goals in the third period to trim the deficit to 3-2.

Anders Less cut the Tampa lead to 3-1 at 13:44 with the Isles skating with an extra skater.

Brock Nelson then hit off the power play at 17:25 to make it 3-2.

Luke Glendening  potted the clincher into an empty net with 30 seconds left on the game clock for the 4-2 final count on the scoreboard.

Ilya Sorokin made 19 saves in the loss.