It had been 22 months since the Islanders beat the Lightning and over three years since they had done so in a regular-season game.
Not since Game 7 against Tampa Bay in 2021 had the Islanders played a more important match, and this time they delivered.
This all-important victory over the Lightning was a 6-1 demolition on Thursday night at UBS Arena that the Islanders sorely needed after scoring just one goal over their previous two games.
Facing questions about whether their intensity was high enough, facing a potential collapse that would keep them out of the postseason a second straight season and facing the team that seems to have their number at every turn, the Islanders came with one of their best performances of the season to stay above the playoff cutline.
“Every game’s must-win at this point,” Adam Pelech told The Post. “So the emphasis was definitely get off to a good start, which is what we did. We played great in the first period and we continued that for 60 minutes.”
The state of play on Friday morning looks, essentially, the same as it did Thursday morning. The Panthers and Islanders are tied on 89 points with Florida holding the tiebreaker with a one-game advantage on regulation wins. The Penguins are a point behind both. All three teams have three games left — and all three teams the Islanders face have been eliminated from playoff contention, with the Flyers next up on Saturday.
Ryan Pulock’ second-period goal gave the Islanders a 4-1 lead. Paul J. BereswillThe Islanders’ confidence, though, should move up a notch with how they played in their biggest game of the season so far.
The Islanders clocked 11 of the game’s first 12 shots, dominating possession of the puck with a relentless forecheck. With the scoreboard-watching only bringing a rise in anxiety — the Panthers and Penguins both won Thursday, as well — it would take the Islanders until the second period for those shots to start translating into goals.
Once that started happening, though, the Islanders seized the moment and never let it go, scoring three times in less than 10 minutes to build an insurmountable lead.
Kyle Palmieri and the Islanders made it a rough night for Lightning goalie Brian Elliott. Paul J. Bereswill“Right from the drop of the first puck, our guys were on pucks,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We played aggressive, we took away time and space and we did a really good job tonight.”
Pelech got it started with a shot from the left point that Brian Elliott never saw as the puck made its way through traffic and in. Then, Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri struck just 49 seconds apart, first with Nelson letting loose a slot one-timer off Samuel Bolduc’s feed from the corner at 9:54 of the period. Nelson would then feed Palmieri, who beat Elliott clean with a wrister.
“I thought our defensemen had really good gaps. I thought they broke up plays throughout the neutral zone where we didn’t have to go back 200 feet, break out and it started in D-zone coverage,” Zach Parise told The Post. “They held the lines really well and kept the pucks in the zone. They held the red line. And that just allowed us to get right back in on the offense.”
Ilya Sorokin shut the door on the Lightning. Paul J. Bereswill
Even with sloppy defensive-zone play continuing to dog the Islanders at times, coming back against them on a three-goal deficit when Ilya Sorokin is in nets is a nearly impossible task. Sorokin finished with 30 saves, including early bailouts when the Islanders let Ross Colton and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare get in on net all alone, the latter doing so shorthanded.
“On the shorty, that was a huge save, big moment in the game,” Pelech said. “But it’s no different from [Sorokin]. He gives us a chance to win every night, he was outstanding tonight just like he always is.”
Nikita Kucherov did manage to beat Sorokin with a wrist shot following Sebastian Aho’s turnover at 16:47 of the second. But that did not hinder the run of play, which continued to favor the Islanders. By the time the horn sounded, Ryan Pulock had made it 4-1 with a wrist shot of his own.
That amounted to game, set and match, though Simon Holmstrom and Bo Horvat both added goals with under five minutes to go.
It will be another nail-biting few days, and another game on Saturday that the Islanders absolutely cannot under any circumstances lose.
“Beating a team that’s headed to the playoffs, you hope it’s a little springboard for our next three,” Parise said. “And don’t look back.”
