Islanders burst through their Lightning block with all-important win

It had been 22 months since the Islanders beat the Lightning and over three years since they had done so in a regular-season game.

Not since Game 7 against Tampa in 2021 had the Islanders played a more important match, and this time, they delivered.

This all-important victory over the Lightning was a 6-1 demolition on Thursday night at UBS Arena that the Islanders sorely needed after scoring just one goal over their previous two games.

Facing questions about whether their intensity was high enough, facing a potential collapse that would keep them out of the postseason a second straight season and facing the team that seems to have their number at every turn, the Islanders came with one of their best performances of the season to stay above the playoff cutline.

The state of play on Friday morning looks, essentially, the same as it did Thursday morning.

The Panthers and Islanders are tied on 89 points with Florida holding the tiebreaker with a one-game advantage on regulation wins.

The Penguins are a point behind both.

All three teams have three games left — and all three teams the Islanders face have been eliminated from playoff contention, with the Flyers next up on Saturday.

The Islanders’ confidence, though, should move up a notch with how they played in their biggest game of the season so far.

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They clocked 11 of the game’s first 12 shots, dominating possession of the puck with a relentless forecheck.

With the scoreboard-watching only bringing a rise in anxiety — the Panthers and Penguins both won Thursday, as well — it would take the Islanders until the second period for those shots to start translating into goals.

Once that started happening, though, the Islanders seized the moment and never let it go, scoring three times in less than 10 minutes to build an insurmountable lead.

Adam Pelech got it started with a shot from the left point that Brian Elliott never saw as the puck made its way through traffic and in.

Then, Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri struck just 49 seconds apart, first with Nelson letting loose a slot one-timer off Samuel Bolduc’s feed from the corner at 9:54 of the period.

Nelson would then feed Palmieri, who beat Elliott clean with a wrister.

Even with sloppy defensive-zone play continuing to dog the Islanders, coming back from a three-goal deficit against them when Ilya Sorokin is in nets is a nearly impossible task.

The only times all night when the Islanders seemed out of control were when handling the puck around their own goal, but Sorokin was there to clean up nearly every mistake, finishing with 30 saves.

Nikita Kucherov did manage to beat Sorokin with a wrist shot following Sebastian Aho’s turnover at 16:47 of the second.

But that did not hinder the run of play, which continued to favor the Islanders.

By the time the horn sounded, Ryan Pulock had made it 4-1 with a wrist shot of his own.

That amounted to game, set and match, though Simon Holmstrom added a fifth goal for good measure with 4:46 to go, with Bo Horvat scoring a sixth with 18.2 seconds left.

It will be another nail-biting few days, and another game on Saturday that the Islanders absolutely cannot under any circumstances lose.

“I think it’s more fun,” coach Lane Lambert said Wednesday, asked how he’s enjoying himself amid a deeply stressful situation. “I just view it as an opportunity. And as excitement. … It’s coming down to the wire here. So what better position to be in than right now?”

On Thursday, the Islanders indeed looked like a team having fun.