So if the Islanders’ season ends tonight, he won’t have to look much further than the massive squandered opportunity his team had midway through the second period. (Photo: Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)Ī 5-on-3 is a 'defining moment' in Barry Trotz’s parlance. Now they’ll go home with the status of Kucherov, their best playmaker, unclear in a Friday Game 7 that will determine who will advance to the Stanley Cup Final. With all their Stanley Cup experience, it felt like a win was inevitable. They weren’t playing their best, but they were playing well enough to win. The Lightning crushed the Islanders 8-0 in Game 5 and took a 2-0 lead in this game. In this postseason – and in this series specifically – momentum has been hard to come by. Mathew Barzal was a dynamo for the Islanders with two assists in 16:59 of action and was probably the best player of the game. The Lightning went 0 for 2 on the man advantage. New York remained disciplined, giving the Tampa power play (which came into the game hitting at 33.3 percent this series) just two opportunities. (All advanced stats were per Natural Stat Trick) The spot where Tampa won was in xGF percentage five-on-five where they were at 50.03 to New York’s 49.97. They held a 55.06 five-on-five CF percentage. They outhit Tampa 34-25, punishing a Lightning team that was hurting. They took 28 shots on goal to Tampa’s 24. The Islanders just wore out the Lightning – missing star winger Nikita Kucherov since the first period – in the third period with a goal to tie the game at 2-2 and then took the only two shots on goal in OT and won it 1:08 into the frame off a turnover by Blake Coleman deep in his own zone.Ī quick look at the stat sheet shows the Islanders were better in this one. That was quite the ending to Game 6 of this semifinal series.Ī shot by Anthony Beauvillier, a goal by the Islanders and then trash being thrown onto the ice by the New York fans – in what could be the final game played at the Nassau Coliseum.Īs co-blogger Mark Lazerus put it, “What a game, what a crowd, what a quintessentially Long Island celebration.”

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