Tampa Bay Lightning at New York Islanders Preview and Game Day Thread: Another date with Stanley?

Tampa Bay Lightning at New York Islanders: ROUND 3, GAME 6
Time: 8:00 PM Eastern Time
Location: Nassau Coliseum
Broadcast/Streaming: NBCSN, CBC, TVAS, SN
Opponent SB Nation Site: Lighthouse Hockey

Coming off a massive 8-0 win at home in Game 5, the Tampa Bay Lightning are looking to end the series once and for all tonight on Long Island. It’s not a done deal just yet as we know how much the Islanders like to use the perception of being insulted as motivation, and it’s going to be especially big at home.

But this Bolts team knows how to weather those moments and follow through with the game plan.

Apart from Game 1, the Lightning have come out starting better, and they’ve usually gotten rewarded for their hard work early. The main difference between the wins in Games 2 and 3 and the Game 4 loss was how well the Lightning were able to manage the late push from the Islanders. In Game 5, they just kept scoring, and scoring, and scoring, and scoring. Let’s do that again.

Don’t think about Game 7, win it tonight and get ready for the Stanley Cup Finals.

In terms of the roster, Erik Cernak was out in the last game, replaced on the third pair by Luke Schenn. David Savard moved up to the second pair and had a great game next to Ryan McDonagh. Jan Rutta, who was injured in Game 5, might be okay to continue. With Erik Cernak also out, there’s a real possibility the Lightning have to go down to either Cal Foote or Andreas Borgman to fill out the roster behind Schenn.

We’ll update the Islanders lines if there are any changes to them as well.

Tampa Bay Lightning Lines

Forwards
Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn - Anthony Cirelli - Steven Stamkos
Barclay Goodrow - Yanni Gourde - Blake Coleman
Pat Maroon - Tyler Johnson - Ross Colton

Defense
Victor Hedman - Jan Rutta*
Ryan McDonagh - David Savard
Mikhail Sergachev - Luke Schenn

Goalies

Andrei Vasilevskiy - starter
Curtis McElhinney

New York Islanders Lines

Forwards
Leo Komarov - Mat Barzal - Jordan Eberle
Anthony Beauvillier - Brock Nelson - Josh Bailey
Kyle Palmieri - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Travis Zajac
Matt Martin - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck

Defense
Adam Pelech - Ryan Pulock
Nick Leddy - Scott Mayfield
Andy Greene - Noah Dobson

Goalies
Semyon Varlamov - presumed starter
Ilya Sorokin