Saturday, May 07, 2016

Morning Player Notes in the Playoffs (May 7)



Another night, another overtime.

In the only game of the night on Friday, the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders went the way of extra time and the visitors managed to take an overtime sweep of the two games in Brooklyn, winning last night's contest, 2-1, and now they head back home with a 3-1 series lead and have put the Islanders firmly behind the 8-ball.

The Islanders were not far out of this one, rather, they were in control of this one and really had their own fate in their hands, as they sat back with an early 1-0 lead from the 1st period and let the Lightning come at them.  The Isles had their chances at adding to their lead, failing at every other opportunity, so the door was open for these clutch kids from Tampa to do their thing.

How good has Nikita Kucherov been?  He's the guy with the tying goal, finding the twine for the 8th time in these playoffs, closer to the midpoint in the 3rd period and it was a game of hanging on from there on in.  There wasn't much either way in the final frame for chances, as both teams seemed to be a bit hesitant to force the play and that brought the game to overtime.

If you didn't get back to the TV on time at the start of overtime, there was a chance that you may have missed the winner, as Jason Garrison got the bonus point, 1:34 into the extra frame and that was it.  Game over.  The series isn't quite over yet, but it has to be very demoralizing for the Islanders to lose both their home games and head back to Tampa in this fashion.

Ben Bishop made 27 saves for the win, Garrison got the bonus point and there's your quick recap of last night's only game.

In the series where it was two underdogs going at it, the favourite is coming out ahead, so far.

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