NHL Betting – Tampa Trundles into NY Sans Stamkos

Tampa Bay Lightning (+110) at New York Islanders (-130, 5 o/u)

With the last week of the regular season coming to an end, the Tampa Bay Lightning (45-28-5, 95 pts) and the New York Islanders (42-26-9, 93 pts) could both use a win tonight when they clash at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn (7:00 PM Eastern).

Tampa Bay is coming off a weekend of mixed emotions.  They earned a crucial 3-1 home win over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday, but also learned their captain, Steven Stamkos, will be out for the rest of the season with a blood clot in his right arm.

“Obviously, this situation is extremely disappointing because I wanted to help my team clinch a playoff spot and prepare for the start of the postseason,” Stamkos told the league’s official website. “During my recovery, I will do all I can to help my teammates, and I hope to rejoin them soon in the Stanley Cup playoffs.”

Stamkos leads the Lightning with 36 goals. He joins defenseman Anton Stralman (fractured fibula) on the sidelines. Tampa is just two points back of Florida for first in the Atlantic Division with four games to go, but catching the Panthers – and making any noise in the postseason – will be much tougher without the Stamkos and Stralman.

The Islanders currently hold the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference but are just three points up on ninth-place Boston and could still conceivably fall out of the postseason. The Isles will also want to hold off the Flyers – who own the second Wild Card berth – as dropping to eighth in the conference would mean a first-round matchup with the league-leading Capital (instead of a cushier matchup with either the Lightning or Panthers).

They took a three-game win streak into the weekend, but didn’t do themselves any favors on Saturday, getting hammered by the Penguins, 5-0.

“Considering where everything stands right now, that kind of effort is unacceptable,” captain John Tavares to the Associated Press after the loss. “It’s extremely disappointing.”

Tavares leads the Islanders with 29 goals and 61 points in 74 games, a far cry from the point-a-game pace he put up last year. The secondary scoring has been down for New York this year, as well. Last year, seven Islanders registered at least 40 points. Only three have reached that plateau this season, though Nick Leddy and Brock Nelson should get there by year’s end.

With Stamkos out, it remains to be seen how Tampa will respond. Even with the captain in the lineup, they haven’t fared well in New York, going 1-7 straight up in the last eight on the road against the Isles.

Pick: Islanders (-130).

(Photo Credit: Lisa Gansky (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)