Isles fit to be tied entering critical Game 4
Must ‘Overcome’ Difficult Loss to Even Up Series with Tampa Bay
Almost to a man, the New York Islanders conceded that Game 3 of their best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Tampa Bay Lightning represented their best team hockey thus far this postseason.
The hitting was there in abundance, the shots on goal came in bunches, the crowd was in full throat for most of the evening and Thomas Greiss was solid in net yet again, stopping 36 shots and keeping the Islanders afloat until getting beat by Nikita Kutcherov on the game-tying tally in the final minute of regulation.
The fact that the contest resulted in a hard-to-swallow loss, one that was prompted by Brian Boyle’s thunderous, and now semi-infamous, hit on Thomas Hickey and subsequent game-winning overtime goal off a fortunate bounce, made it even more galling for the Islanders to accept.