Alex Killorn and Steven Stamkos both netted two goals and an
assist and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy collected the shutout to lead the host
Tampa Bay Lightning to a 8-0 whitewashing of the New York Islanders on Monday
that puts them one win away from advancing to the
Stanley Cup Final.
اضافة اعلان
Tampa Bay has a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven semifinal
series and will look to close it out Wednesday in Uniondale, New York.
Yanni Gourde, Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point and Luke Schenn
also scored for the defending champions, who set a franchise playoff record for
goals differential. Vasilevskiy made 21 saves for his third shutout of this
year's playoffs.
Islanders starting goalie Semyon Varlamov surrendered three
goals on 16 shots before being pulled. Ilya Sorokin stopped 20 of 25 shots in
relief. The result was the most one-sided postseason defeat in Islanders
history.
The Lightning were looking for a quick start and received it
when Stamkos scored just 45 seconds into the clash when he pounced on a loose
puck in the left circle. He snapped a personal five-game goal drought.
Gourde doubled the lead at the 11:04 mark when he stole the
puck in the offensive zone and his cross-ice pass banked into the net off
defender Andy Greene. Killorn's first of the game, a redirect of David Savard's
point shot, spelled the end of the game for Varlamov at 15:27 of the one-sided
opening frame.
The goalie switch didn't turn the tide. Stamkos potted his
second of the game with a one-timer from the left faceoff dot for a power-play
goal at 5:42 of the middle frame, and then Palat extended the lead to 5-0 when
he deflected Savard's point shot 10 minutes later.
Killorn's second of the game was another power-play marker
and another deflected point shot with 2:07 remaining in the middle period.
The onslaught didn't end there. Point extended his
goal-scoring streak to eight games when he scored Tampa Bay's 20th power-play
goal of the playoffs 119 seconds into the third period.
His streak is the second longest in a single year in Stanley
Cup history, two back of the mark set by Reggie Leach of the Philadelphia
Flyers in 1976.
Schenn rounded out the scoring when his point shot
ricocheted off the skate of Islanders defenseman Ryan Pulock and into the net
at 12:05 of the third period. Schenn, who played in place of the injured Erik
Cernak, scored his first playoff goal since 2016.
New York's top goal-scorer, Mathew Barzal, was given a
five-minute major penalty and game misconduct for cross-checking Jan Rutta at
the end of the second period.
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