Jake Guentzel and Victor Hedman scored the game-winning and insurance goals in the second period Tuesday night for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who inched closer to clinching a playoff berth while damaging the postseason hopes of the New York Islanders with a 4-1 win in Elmont, N.Y.
Oliver Bjorkstrand opened the scoring in the first and Nick Paul added an empty-netter late in the third for the Lightning (44-25-5, 93 points), who have won four straight. Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point had two assists apiece, and Guentzel added an assist.
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves for Tampa Bay, which is on the verge of clinching its eighth straight playoff berth.
Bo Horvat scored in the first for the Islanders (32-32-10, 74 points), who lost their sixth straight (0-4-2) and slipped five points behind Montreal in the race for the second Eastern Conference wild-card berth by virtue of the Canadiens’ 3-2 overtime win over the Florida Panthers.
New York’s Ilya Sorokin recorded 20 saves.
Bjorkstrand opened the scoring 8:46 into the first when Darren Raddysh’s shot from the blue line glanced off the stick of Bjorkstrand and fluttered past Sorokin, who was screened by Bjorkstrand, as well as Lightning center Gage Goncalves and the Islanders’ Noah Dobson and Maxim Tsyplakov.
Horvat tied the score with a short-handed goal just 2:11 later. Kucherov’s shot into the crease glanced off the stick of Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock and to Horvat, who raced up the left side of the ice with teammate Kyle Palmieri. Horvat shuffled the puck and fired a shot past Vasilevskiy’s stick just before Raddysh slid.
The Lightning scored twice in a span of 2:32 in the second.
Guentzel capped an end-to-end rush by taking a pass from Kucherov, who whirled as he reached the goal line, and sending a shot over Sorokin’s glove as Adam Pelech tried but failed to get in the way of the puck at the 8:09 mark.
Guentzel then picked off a backwards pass by Pelech at the edge of the Lightning zone to begin the sequence that ended with Kucherov feeding Hedman, who fired a shot over Sorokin’s glove.
Paul, playing his first game since his son was born Sunday, collected an empty-netter with 3:31 left.
–Field Level Media
