Islanders: The good, bad, and ugly of facing the Tampa Bay Lightning

The Ugly

Beat Boston in five games

Boston was the best team through the regular season with a 44-14-12 record. They were the only team to hit 100 points before the season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while the Bruins were without the services of Tuukka Rask in the playoffs, they still had Halak in net. The former Islanders goalie picked up 18 wins in 19-20 and averaged a 2.38GAA and 0.919SV% for the Bruins.

But Tampa ran through Boston like they weren’t even there.

The Bruins had the eighth-best offense in the regular season but only managed nine goals in five games.

The Bruins had the best defensive record in the league during the regular season but still allowed 19 goals against. Again, it’s like Boston wasn’t even there. If the Lightning can do that to Boston, it’s ugly to think what they could do against the Islanders who were the eleventh ranked team in the 19-20 season.

A good goalie

Carter Hart had a great series against the Islanders. He was a big reason why that series went to seven games. The Islanders will once again face a good goalie with Andrei Vasilevskiy between the pipes for Tampa.

The Russian goalie has been rock solid in net this postseason, averaging a 1.91GAA and 0.931SV% through 13 games.

The Islanders aren’t that talented that we should expect their offense to click as it did throughout the postseason so far. Vasilevskiy’s 5.90 GSAA shows that even when teams get chances, he still finds a way to stop them.

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The Islanders found it tough at times against the Flyers because of Carter Hart. The Isles were the better team throughout the series, yet they still needed a Game 7 to progress. All because of Carter Hart. Andrei Vasilevskiy is a better goalie. That’s going to be a big problem for the Isles.