The Islanders are in the nation’s swampy dangling digit to play the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight and the Florida Panthers tomorrow night.
The Lightning, no longer defending champions — and no longer Islanders-eliminators because we decided to skip the 2022 playoffs — are coming off a game in South Florida last night, so we can’t complain too much about the back-to-back factor here. They won in overtime, with Isles nemesis Brayden Point tying the game in the third before netting the OT winner.
The Lightning are off to a slow start this year (2-3), but as Raw Charge has noted, they did that last season too and it didn’t mess with their charge to a third consecutive Stanley Cup final.