NHL Picks

New York Islanders vs. Tampa Bay Lightning – 9/17/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

Tampa Bay Lightning at New York Islanders 9/17/20: NHL Hockey free preview, analysis, prediction, odds and pick against the spread.
2020-09-17 20:00:00 EDT

The Tampa Bay Lightning and the New York Islanders meet in game six of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference final series in NHL action from Rogers Place on Thursday.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to rebound and close out the series after falling to the Islanders 2-1 in game five last time out, giving the Islanders a lifeline after falling behind in the series which now sits at 3-2.

Ryan Pulock opened the scoring for the Islanders in the dying seconds of the opening but Victor Hedman would pull a goal back for Tampa Bay at the four minute mark of the second period. The tie held through the rest of the second and the entire 3rd period as well as the first period of 20-minute overtime before Jordan Eberle scored to give the Islanders the win and extend their season for another day and another game.

Semyon Varlamov picked up the win between the pipes for the Islanders after stopping 36 of 37 shots faced in the winning effort while Andrei Vasilevskiy took the L for the Lightning in goal after giving up two goals on 24 shots faced in defeat.

Tampa Bay is 39-15 in their last 54 games overall and 24-9 in their last 33 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 13-4-4 in their last 21 games against the Metropolitan division. New York is 6-15 in their last 21 games as an underdog and 1-4 in their last 5 games following a win while the under is 8-3 in their last 11 Thursday games. Tampa Bay is 15-6 in the last 21 meetings between these two teams and 7-3 in the last 10 meetings between these two teams in New York.

It’s been hard to gauge the Islanders, as when I back them they lose and when I side with Tampa the Islanders just show up and get the job done. With that said, I missed the boat a couple of times on the Islanders and you have to come back to the idea that the Tampa Bay Lightning have been playing better hockey up to this point for the most part so I’ll side with the Lightning on the money line as my free pick for this game, but my stronger play is on the total and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.

Chris Ruffolo's Free Pick: Tampa Bay -150

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Chris Ruffolo

Chris joined the Sports Chat Place team in August 2016 and has a proven system that combines multiple analytical and situational statistics and trends to give out thousands of winning picks over the last three years with winning records across all of the top leagues, Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg

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