Islanders Playoff News: Lightning series begins Sunday in Tampa

The final four is set and the NHL has announced the schedule for the Stanley Cup semifinals. The first series is ours, with the New York Islanders opening in Tampa against the Lightning for Game 1 at 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday.

Islanders News

• Here’s the full schedule, and yes, they’ll be fighting for the Prince of Wales Trophy (which once had its own hockey card, because Pro Set made a card for everything ca. 1990-91-92). [LHH]
• Five Takeaways from the Second Round: Balance, resilience. [Isles]
• Because I’m a dork, but mostly because I wanted links and quick summaries to each second-round game in one place: Here’s a post describing them all in bad haikus. [LHH]
• Not like you get to just pick and choose your spots, but certainly the Islanders remembered from last year’s bubble the pain of not closing out a series when you have the chance. [Post]
• A brief look at how the Isles and Lightning match up. [Newsday]
• How many mistakes would we make in life if Larry Brooks weren’t around to tell us to “make no mistake”? This is a funny column because it excoriates the Rangers, but a curious one because it treats the Islanders roster as a model rather than a Trotz-ian exception. [Post]
• On that note: The Isles’ success is not one that can be easily duplicated. [NBC Sports]
• Because it has been a classic Lou Lamoriello exercise. [Post]
• As some of you discussed in our comments section, it was an impressive and welcome showing by Nick Leddy in Game 6. [Empire Sports]
• The Jets (football, New York) have a new coach and he wore an Isles jersey to yesterday’s press conference. [Isles]

Elsewhere

Devon Toews opened scoring in Game 6, but the Golden Knights outmatched Colorado and won four straight to dump the Avalanche. They’ll face the Canadiens in the other semifinal.

• As you might imagine, fans of the defending champion Lightning are quite confident heading into this series, knowing they’re deeper (and much further over the cap) than the Bruins. [Raw Charge]
• The Penguins goalie Casey DeSmith, who was not available to rescue Tristan Jarry, is having core muscle surgery. [PensBurgh]
• Continuing the casualties the Isles have wrought: Have the Bruins seen the last of Tuukka Rask? [Globe]
• It’s a 3M Hart Trophy finalist trio. None of them are still playing. [NHL]
• Dougie Hamilton hopes to re-sign and “keep it going” with the Hurricanes. [NHL]
• Evidently the Sabres do not hope to keep it going with Jack EIchel. [Yahoo]
• Um...Connor Helebuyck thinks...the Jets are working toward a dynasty. [NHL]
• But status quo sure isn’t enough for anything remotely close to that to happen. [Sportsnet]
• Even after his death, Dale Hawerchuk’s influence continues through his foundation. [NHL]