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N.Y. Islanders vs. Tampa Bay Lightning series preview

April 27, 2016, 4:44 PM ET [59 Comments]
Ty Anderson
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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For the second year in a row, the Tampa Bay Lightning are one of the eight teams in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And for the first time since 1993 (many current Isles were just toddlers), the New York Islanders, who then played in the long disbanded Patrick Division, have joined that list.

The Lightning punched their ticket to round two behind an undeniably hateful five-game war with the broken Detroit Red Wings, while the Isles’ path was a bit more arduous thanks to their six-game opening round series with the Atlantic-winning Florida Panthers, a series in which the final two games were settled in double-overtimes, both victories for the Islanders (one in Florida and one in Brooklyn).

In the regular season, the Islanders took two of three from the Lightning, including a late-season 5-2 loss for the Lightning at the Barclays Center on Apr. 4. But the Bolts’ lone regular-season win over New York was a big one, a 7-4 win at Amalie Arena, a win that included goals from seven different Lightning skaters, on Mar. 25. Do these games matter much entering this series? Lightning head coach b>Jon Cooper didn’t seem to think so, instead focusing on how the Isles handled the Panthers.

These are two clubs that got here with strong goaltending, and led by a top-line, and centerman really, that came through when their teams needed it most. Both teams are both battling through some injuries to both key contributors and supporting cast members, and seem as even as they come. (Even before the injuries.) But thanks to the league’s bizarre playoff format, which puts an emphasis on building rivalries, Tampa enters this series with the crucial home-ice advantage by virtue of their 97-point finish into second in the Atlantic while the Isles, at 100 points, were the East’s first wild card.

This is the first playoff meeting between the Islanders and Lightning since their first-round showdown in the 2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Lightning won that series in five games, and is remembered as the spark that pushed the Lightning to their first and only Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Forwards


The elephant in the room, especially with his return to practice yesterday, is the status of captain Steven Stamkos. Out of action since his successful surgery to remove blood clots from his arm, No. 91 looked strong as he rifled some pucks on net, even in a no-contact jersey. But with Stamkos still on blood thinners, it’s clear that his return is not around the corner, especially with the surgery’s ‘best case scenario’ return date (one month) still over a week away.

So that leaves the pressure on the Lighting’s interim No. 1 center, Tyler Johnson, to continue to carry the load. Johnson responded unbelievably well in the first round, too, with two goals and five assists in five games. But it was the play of the winger to his right, Nikita Kucherov, that really continued to turn heads. On the heels of the best regular-season of his career, the Russian sniper has rolled on into the postseason, and has scored in three of five postseason tilts (five goals and eight points in total). And Alex Killorn has been the steady complementary piece, and came through with two game-winning tallies in the club’s opening round series with Detroit (Game 1 and the other in 4).

But the Lightning, with their lines from the first round pretty much intact, could stand to use some more scoring from their second line (Ondrej Palat-Valtteri Filppula-Jonathan Drouin), third line (Cedric Paquette-Vladdy Namestnikov-Ryan Callahan), and anything from the fourth line (Mike Blunden-Brian Boyle and Erik Condra, if he’s dressed as the 12th skater) is really just a bonus in this series.

The Filppula could use some added scoring, of course, but it’s that third line that will really be tested as the Lightning’s best when it comes to slowing down the straight-up explosive Islander top-line featuring John Tavares in the middle and Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen on the wings. This is a series really built for Paquette, a player that primarily held Jonathan Toews in check a postseason ago, to rise up to the challenge after a frustrating regular season loaded with injuries and inconsistencies.

The Islanders are loaded with a unique mix of experience and youth through their second and third lines -- from a dangerous second line of Nik Kulemin, Brock Nelson, and Josh Bailey, to a youth-heavy third line with Alan Quine, Shane Prince, and Ryan Strome -- Jack Capuano’s lineup features a versatile mix that he can shift around if and when he needs to. That’s hard to gameplan against, too.

But it’s New York’s oft-discussed fourth line -- with the hard-hitting Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin on the wings and Casey Cizikas at center -- that the Lightning will need to contain throughout this series. And when I say ‘contain’, I don’t necessarily mean limiting scoring chances or anything like that, but rather limiting their impact on the game, especially when the series shifts to Brooklyn.

If there’s one criticism of the Lightning’s series win over the Wings, it was their discipline, and how the Wings’ physical play almost constantly dragged the Lightning into penalty trouble. The Islander fourth line is basically built to get under your skin and force you into bad decisions with the puck or your brain.

This is when you’ll need Boyle’s line to come up and match that energy and physical play. Within reason.

In addition to Stamkos, it doesn’t sound as if the Lightning will have J.T. Brown (upper-body) in the lineup for this series, at least not to start, anyways. The Islanders are battling through some injuries of their own up front, too, with both Mikhail Grabovski and Anders Lee out of action.

Tampa Bay X-Factor: For this series, I think Ryan Callahan is a player to watch. Familiar with the Islanders from his tenure with the Rangers (Callahan has 10 goals and 26 points in 43 career games against the Islanders), Callahan broke through with his first point of the playoffs with the game-winning assist on the lone goal of Tampa Bay’s Game 5 with Detroit. It was a product of hustle and pressuring the defense and goaltender, something the Lightning will need to do against a considerably active New York defensive six. Callahan also plays a major part on a Tampa Bay penalty kill that’s been straight-up dominant through the postseason thus far, with a 24-of-25 mark on the PK.

New York X-Factor: Frans Nielsen. On a line with Tavares and Okposo, Nielsen could be that guy the Lightning often forget about given the stature of the other two. That would be a mistake. On the heels of a 20-goal, 52-point regular season -- the second best of his NHL career -- Nielsen put forth a solid first round, with three goals and four points in six games. The 32-year-old had three points in as many games against Tampa Bay this year, and has three goals and 18 points in 29 total games versus Tampa.

Defense


An underrated part of the Lightning’s success in the first round? The play of their defense and how they pushed the pace of play the other way with strong breakouts. They’ll need more of that in this series, too, even as they wait for Anton Stralman to likely return to action at some point in this series, so long as it goes deep enough (read as: not a four of five game series).

This means the Lightning, at least for now, will continue to roll with a top-pairing of Victor Hedman and Matt Carle, second pairing featuring Jason Garrison and Andrej Sustr, and third-pair with Nikita Nesterov on the left and Braydon Coburn on the right. Matt Taormina remains an option as the club’s seventh defenseman should Cooper go to the 11-forward, 7-d rotation.

The Islanders counter with a defense full of guys that have been here before -- headlined by ex-Bruin Johnny Boychuk and ex-Blackhawk Nick Leddy, along with veteran Marek Zidlicky -- and players such as Calvin de Haan, Travis Hamonic, and Thomas Hickey. As the Lightning saw in their regular-season head-to-heads with New York, this is an Islander defense that likes to get involved into the attacking zone game, and can come up with big plays when the ice gets a bit too clogged for their forwards.

Tampa Bay X-Factor: In a series like this, Braydon Coburn will need to come up big. The Islanders are bigger than the Red Wings, and their forechecking game is even more intense. So, the Bolts are going to need to find the power to withstand the blows when they come their way. This is where a guy like Coburn, familiar with the Islanders from his time in the then-Atlantic Division with Philadelphia, has to shine for Tampa Bay. And on a third pairing opposite Nikita Nesterov, the Lightning will rely on Coburn to be the ox back there capable of handling what the Islanders throw their way.

New York X-Factor: It has to be Johnny Boychuk. I don’t think Boychuk had a particular great first-round series with the Panthers, and I think he’d be the first to tell you that. While the physical play has remained a crucial element of Boychuk’s game (he was credited with 28 hits in the first round), Boychuk’s outlet passes and ability to get that cannon off a shot on goal were not where the Isles expected. The Islanders will need that in round two if they’re to put more than a few in the T.B. net.

Goaltending


We can talk about the offenses. And the defenses. But this series really, 100% comes back down to the goaltending duel between the Bolts’ Ben Bishop and New York’s Thomas Greiss.

The black-and-white numbers: Bishop won four of five games in round one, and stopped 152-of-160 shots (a .950 save percentage), and posted a 1.61 goals against average over that stretch. Bishop allowed two goals or none at all in that series, too, and was just stifling in Tampa’s Game 5 win. Greiss, on the other hand, was just as impressive, with a .944 save percentage, this in over nearly 140 more minutes of time in net than Bishop (Greiss ended his series with back-to-back games over 90 minutes).

So, the theoretical edge in crease, at least upon his glance, is a push.

The 6-foot-7 Bishop has struggled against the Islanders this year, and was pulled from his final regular-season start against the club after surrendering five goals on 23 shots against, and finished with a woeful .842 save percentage and 12 goals against in three total games against N.Y. this season. Those numbers are relatively in line with his career figures, too, as No. 30 comes into this series with just five wins and an .890 save percentage in 10 career head-to-heads with the Islanders.

But fatigue can be an obvious issue for Greiss, especially after that series with Florida, as this season, between the regular season and postseason, is already twice as many minutes as Greiss had previously logged in his most active season (a 1,312-minute season with Arizona two years ago).

An early jump against Greiss -- who stopped 32-of-34 in his last regular-season game against the Lightning and has three wins in four total games against Tampa Bay -- is the absolute key.

Prediction: I found the first-round series between the Islanders and Florida Panthers borderline impossible to pick (I picked the Panthers on HockeyBuzz, but noticed that I picked the Isles in my NHL Bracket Challenge so in other words it would appear that I found the perfect fence to sit on), and I feel somewhat similar about this one. The Isles are such an enigma, and I think the Bolts can be just the same, especially when you look at their aforementioned head-to-head season series with New York. But behind the return of Stralman, and a series that gets everyone included in the offensive attack (read as: their blood flowing), I’ll take Bishop and the Lightning over the Islanders in seven games.

Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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