Tampa Bay Lightning vs. New York Islanders – 9/9/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The New York Islanders and the Tampa Bay Lightning meet in game two of their Eastern Conference Final series in NHL action from Rogers Place on Wednesday night.

The New York Islanders will look to bounce back from a disastrous game one showing, allowing Tampa Bay to walk out with an 8-2 thumping in the series opener to give the Lightning a 1-0 series lead.

Brayden Point opened the scoring just 1:14 into the game for Tampa Bay but Jordan Eberle would respond for the Isles just 3:19 later. Victor Hedman would restore Tampa Bay’s lead just after the eight-minute mark of the 1st and Ryan McDonagh made it 3-1 just 2:34 later. Yanni Gourde made it 4-1 Lightning just over four minutes into the second and Point would bury his second of the game to push it to 5-1 later in the second. Nikita Kucherov made it six for the Bolts just under six minutes into the third but Nick Leddy would respond to bring the deficit back to four goals just under three minutes later. Ondrej Palat made it 7-2 just :45 after Leddy’s marker and Gourde scored his second goal of the game with under seven minutes to go, pouring salt in the wound and giving the Lightning an 8-2 lead that they’d ride to the final horn. Andrei Vasilevskiy got the win in goal for Tampa Bay after stopping 22 of 24 shots faced in the winning effort while Thomas Greiss gave up 3 goals on 9 shots before being pulled from the Islanders goal.

New York is 4-13 in their last 17 games as an underdog and 3-12 in their last 15 Wednesday games while the over is 3-0-1 in their last 4 games against the Atlantic division. Tampa Bay is 37-14 in their last 51 games overall and 67-32 in their last 99 games following a win while the under is 3-1-2 in their last 6 conference final games. New York is 4-13 in the last 17 meetings between these two teams.

I’d really like to think that game one was an eye-opener for the Islanders and that they’ll actually show up for game two, but the problem is that Tampa Bay as much as we’ve bashed them on the live show in the mornings, are for real and are here to win the whole thing and are taking no prisoners while doing it. I just think that the Lightning flexed some muscle in game one and are the far better team here so until I see otherwise, I have to go Tampa Bay on the puck line.