Seeking their first trip to the championship round since 1984, the Isles took just 18 shots on goal in a loss to Tampa Bay, the Cup’s current owners.
The years drift by, the players, coaches and owners come and go, and the Islanders’ long wait for another appearance in the Stanley Cup finals continues. On Friday night, the Islanders were one win away from reaching hockey’s grandest stage for the first time since 1984, one goal from prolonging their season with a chance to win their first title since they claimed four consecutive N.H.L. championships from 1980 to ’83. But the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning, playing at home in front of a raucous crowd, were too much to overcome. The Lightning beat the Islanders,1-0, in a riveting Game 7 of their conference final playoff series in Tampa, Fla., on Friday to advance to the Stanley Cup finals for the second straight year. Tampa Bay will play the Montreal Canadiens with a chance to repeat as the champion, while Montreal will look for its first title since 1993, the last time it was in the finals. Game 1 will be Monday night in Tampa. The finals will be an odd-couple matchup, between a venerable franchise from hockey’s ancestral homeland and a nouveau riche crew from sunny Florida. The Canadiens are one of the most storied franchises in all sports, winners of a league-record 24 titles dating to 1916, while the Lightning have been in the league since just 1992-93. That was the season that ended with the Canadiens hoisting their most recent Cup in celebration at the old Montreal Forum. This season’s edition of Les Habitants did not seem much like the long-lost heir to a dynasty. The Canadiens finished the regular season with 59 points, the fewest of any of the 16 playoff teams, but in the postseason they have coalesced into a dynamic combination of gritty veterans and high-flying youngsters like Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki. The Lightning, meanwhile, have ridden the hot goaltending of Andrei Vasilevskiy, who recorded his fourth consecutive series-clinching shutout, dating to Tampa’s win over the Dallas Stars in last year’s finals.
