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# Tampa BAE Lightning: Game 51
- URL: https://www.bayareaexaminer.com/tampa-bae-lightning-game-51/
- Published: 2025-02-01T19:02:03.000Z
- Updated: 2025-02-01T19:02:03.000Z
- Description: Where's the Italian?
- Author: Collin Sherwin
- Tags: #Migrated-1792597384348, #Import 2026-10-21 15:44

The Tampa Bay Lightning are back on the ice tonight inside Amalie Arena to take on the New York Islanders at 7 p.m.

This is the 1st regular season meeting between the Bolts & Islanders.

The Lightning need to take this game very seriously. The Islanders are going to be part of the car crash that is the Eastern Conference Wild Card race and they have been red hot lately thanks, in large part, to their goal tending.

They are 8-2-0 in their last ten games including a current, league best, six game winning streak. In those six games, they have not scored less than three goals and have allowed no more than two in any given game—that’s not great news for a Lightning team that has been snake bitten offensively.

There’s one area where the Lightning can, and really must, capitalize against the Islanders: Special Teams.

The Islanders rank 31st in PK Percentage (take this with a grain of salt) & 32nd in PP Percentage. In their current six game streak, the Islanders are 1-in-10 in power play goals to opportunities. Expand that to their last 10 games, they are 3-in-17\. Giving up a power play goal to that unit would be very bad. Giving up multiple? Yikes.

The PK, while bad on the season, has only surrendered 2 goals in about 25 short handed situations in their last ten games. That’s actually pretty good.

Of course, all of these special teams stats get dicey for the Bolts if Cirelli isn’t playing. He’s one of their best specialists and really does wonders for them on the PK with Hagel. Take him out of the equation and things could get weird.

So, who wins tonight? I want to say the Bolts, but they are catching this Islanders team at the exact wrong time. Sorokin has been stellar in this stretch of games and the Lightning have made every goalie look like a Vezina finalist, but this time Sorokin is actually playing like one. This one could be a lot closer than people think. I’m leaning toward the Lightning, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Islanders walk away with the W instead.

Go Bolts!

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