Islanders push Lightning before faltering late in loss

You wondered, for parts of Sunday afternoon’s game, how it was that these were the same two teams that played for a spot in the Cup final, such was the difference between them.

You wondered, in other parts, whether the Islanders might somehow overcome what seemed an overwhelming speed and skill gap between them and the Lightning, and whether that might say more about this group than anything else they’ve done in a quietly sterling month of March.

And then the Lightning answered that query with a resounding no, beating the Islanders 4-1 in a fun-to-watch game that teetered until Tampa pulled away in the third. Even when the Lightning show cracks, as they did for parts of Sunday, Victor Hedman is still Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy is still Andrei Vasilevskiy, and they can still punish errors.

The Islanders learned all of the above in a decisive second period, when Hedman scored on the tail end of a power play with a powerful wrist shot, Alex Killorn gave Tampa the lead after Anthony Beauvillier’s misplay at the opposing blue line led to an odd-man rush and Vasilevskiy’s lone mistake came on a Jean-Gabriel Pageau goal that was overturned upon review for offside.

That series of events let the Lightning take a 2-1 lead into the final 20 minutes, in a game where the Islanders had largely played them equal.

In the final period, the Lightning opened the gap further, with Ross Colton cleaning up a rebound with 10:50 to go. The Islanders had a chance to pull within one on a late power play, but failed to score, and soon after, Mikhail Sergachev scored on a rebound to give Tampa a 4-1 lead.

The question of the day then became the status of Ilya Sorokin, who had 18 saves, was pulled going into the third and didn’t make an appearance on the bench in the final period — seeming to take two pucks off the mask before leaving the game. Vasilevskiy finished with 33 saves for the Lightning.

For much of the first period, it looked like the Lightning were knocking on the door. But Brock Nelson turned things the other way with a goal off the rush, keeping it himself and shooting a wrister past Vasilevskiy at 18:14.

The Lightning, who return to Long Island for the final game of the regular season, have now beaten their former playoff foes twice in as many tries this season — the first early on in an 11-game losing streak that swung the Islanders’ season, the second just when it looked like they were coming out of a long morass.

For the first time since March 1-3, the Islanders have lost consecutive games — a stat that, in truth, is a credit to how they’ve played for the last four weeks. This one also snapped a six-game home winning streak. It’s no coincidence that this has come when they’ve played a back-to-back against playoff teams, but given their effort on Sunday, it is disappointing nonetheless to come away without a point.

The big takeaway from the weekend: The Islanders might be closer than they were earlier this year. They are still not close enough, and whatever good vibes have come from their recent play will be overshadowed by that plan and simple fact.