Islanders Drop Physical Game vs Lightning 4-1

After a dud in Boston, the New York Islanders were back in action against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the first period we had some serious fisticuffs for both sides with Ross Johnston and Pat Maroon dropping them in a heavyweight battle.

At the end of the first, the Islanders were the ones who got on the board first thanks to Brock Nelson who is on fire right now.

Make it a career-high 31 goals for Brock Nelson on the season. In the second, the Lightning responded strongly. On the power play, Victor Hedman came in with some speed around Andy Greene and beat Ilya Sorokin short side.

Later, it was Alex Killorn scoring in tight to give Tampa Bay their first lead of the game. At the end of the period it looked like JG Pageau tied this game up at two on the backhand but after review, Kyle Palmieri was offside.

It was very clearly offside but still, this guy just can't seem to get on the right side of one of those calls lately.

At the start of the third, Semyon Varlamov came in for Ilya Sorokin. Naturally, Islanders twitter went into a panic and there is no news at the time of writing this what happened to Ilya.

At 9:10, Ross Colton was able to beat Semyon Varlamov and give the Lightning a two goal lead. Tampa was all over the Islanders at the start of the third, as they registered eight shots in the first 10 minutes of the period.

Mikhail Sergachev extended the Lightning lead after some Steven Stamkos pushing and shoving cleared the front of the net for him to walk in and beat Semyon Varlamov. The Islanders would fall 4-1 to Tampa Bay after back to back tough performances this weekend.