NHL Hockey Betting: Stanley Cup Playoffs for May 6, 2016
Just one Stanley Cup playoff game for Friday night. Saturday will feature three games.
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING AT NEW YORK ISLANDERS:
The obvious joke is that all of the Tampa Bay Lightning should be listed as ‘questionable’ after attending a Justin Beiber concert on their ‘off day’ of the series. The Bolts’ best of seven series against the New York Islanders stands at 2-1 with Tampa leading and in a position to take complete control with a win tonight. It’s starting to look like this series isn’t as closely matched as it looked initially after New York’s 5-3 win in Game One. The New York media–which has a reputation for being critical but has a strong propensity to cheerlead as well–is talking about how the Islanders as a team and various individual players are ‘struggling’. The Islanders body language after Game Three looked like a team facing elimination, not a team down just one game in a long series.
No big secret that this game is crucial for New York. In fact, it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that the series rides on the outcome. Should New York win the series is tied after both teams split games on home ice. The teams head back to Tampa Bay tied 2-2. Should the Lightning win they head home up 3-1 and the Islanders must fend off elimination the rest of the way if they are to advance. Winning three straight games against a quality team with two on the road is a tough task for even the best teams.
Tampa Bay needed overtime to win in Game Four getting a goal from new found Islanders’ villain Brian Boyle. The irony is that the Islanders played their best game of the series in Game Four and lost. After generating just 22 shots in Game One (albeit a winning effort) and 20 in Game Two they got 39 in Game Three. The problem, however, is that they continue to give up too much to the Tampa Bay offense allowing the Lightning to take 41 shots. Were it not for the efforts of goalie Thomas Greiss this game would have been a decisive Lightning win. The Islanders’ defensive porousness has been a theme throughout this series. They’ve been outshot in every game–by double digits in Games One and Two–and have allowed the Lightning to take 108 shots in three games. Greiss has been solid in his role as starter following the injury to Jaroslav Halak but he’s not Patrick Roy or Dominik Hasek. He can’t be expected to make 40 saves a night just to give the Isles a chance to win.
Speaking of the Islanders’ goaltending situation–the injury reports may have gotten ahead of starting goalie Jaroslav Halak’s recovery from a groin injury. He was upgraded from ‘out indefinitely’ to ‘questionable’ a few days ago and the ‘word on the street’ was that his return was imminent. Not so fast–he’s returned to practice on a limited basis and is skating again but still not ready to return. In some ways, that’s a good thing for the Islanders–there’s no goaltending ‘controversy’ and Thomas Greiss knows that he’s ‘the man’ for the immediate future. That’s a much better situation for a goaltender to be in–and for his team to be in–than the convoluted, revolving door in the Dallas Stars’ net.
We eluded to Brian Boyle being the new ‘villain’ for the Islanders fans above for his perceived ‘head shot’ on Thomas Hickey during the Game Three overtime. The refs didn’t call it as a penalty on the ice and the NHL declined to punish Boyle with a suspension or even a hearing. Even the New York media–always looking for a pariah–is castigating Boyle but emphasizing the importance of the Isles ‘putting it behind them’. It doesn’t sound like head coach Jack Capuano is ready to move on and that’s a bad omen for the team. He’s the one that needs to set the tone that the team can’t undo the past even if they feel they were ‘in the right’. They’ve got to play hockey with their season at stake. The Boyle issue is something of a scapegoat now–if the Islanders don’t give up a game tying goal to Nikita Kucherov with :38 seconds left they’re up 2-1 in the series. They’re feeling better about a poor defensive effort than they should since the Boyle hit/non-suspension has become the dominant storyline. The worst thing that a team can do here is to feel like they were ‘slighted’ or ‘screwed’ when in reality they put themselves into the position for it to happen.
The Islanders still have a chance to get back in this series and even win it. The Bolts split the first two games on their home ice so no real negative if the Islanders do it as well. The problem is that there are a lot of subtle negatives coming out of the Islanders camp–finger pointing, excuse making, pointless grudges and self satisfaction with a performance that was downright shoddy on defense. The Lightning aren’t going down quietly–they were in the Stanley Cup Finals last year after all. And now that the ‘monkey is off their back’ it’s easy to forget about the Islanders long run of playoff futility. Before their win over Florida in the first round they hadn’t won a series since the 1990’s. Good for them putting an end to that streak, but now they’re a team that’s won one playoff series in over twenty years. They need to show more focus and defensive tenacity to beat the defending Eastern Conference Champions. If they take the attitude that the team, coaches and media have shown over the past 48 hours onto the ice for Game Four they’re as good as beat. Tampa Bay needs to get better defensively as well but they’ve shown they can contain the Islanders’ offense and they’re not distracted by ancillary issues that have nothing to do with the task at hand.
BET TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING -110 OVER NEW YORK ISLANDERS