The New York Islanders are in Pittsburgh tonight with a chance to close out their first round series against the Penguins. Here are five keys to an Islanders win.

1- Continue to neutralize Pittsburgh’s offense. Sidney Crosby is a minus-four throughout the series, Jake Guentzel is a minus-three and Patric Hornqvist is a minus-one. All of them are pointless in the first three games of the series. Eliminating the offense of three of Pittsburgh’s top five forwards has been huge for the outcome of the series.

2- Continue to limit shots. The Islanders have significantly reduced shots from game to game, allowing 44 in the first game, 33 in the second and only 26 shots last game. Giving Lehner less work is only a positive.

3- On the flip side, the Islanders have been slowly increasing their shot totals or at the very least, keeping them consistent. They had 33 shots in Game 1, 34 shots in Game 2 and 35 shots last game. Considering the Islanders ranked 29th in shots per game this season at just 28.8, this is a big improvement.

4- Jordan Eberle needs to continue to drive offense. He’s been included in probably every game preview so far but his three goals and five points have him leading the series in both categories and his streak has reached seven goals and 10 points in his last eight games.

5- The Islanders’ penalty kill has been great so far, operating at 87.5%. Seeing as Pittsburgh’s power play was deadly in the regular season, ranked fifth overall, New York’s penalty kill deserves a lot of credit.


Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m.

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