Lightning's win streak ends with road loss to Islanders

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Dec 2, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The Tampa Bay Lightning’s win streak eventually was going to come to an end, and Tuesday night on Long Island they lost their first game in more than two weeks.

They played a lot of solid two-way hockey over that seven-game stretch, and while their 2-1 loss to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena wasn’t their best effort it was a tight game the Lightning still could have pulled out.

After being blanked for the first 56 minutes, the Lightning cut their deficit to a goal when rookie center Dominic James scored with 3:34 remaining. But after pulling goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy for an extra attacker, they were unable to score the equalizer.

Their winning streak was built on strong puck possession and stingy defense in their own zone, and on Tuesday they lacked in both areas.

After a scoreless first period, the Lightning were caught flat-footed on an Islanders rush with all three forwards behind on the play as Bo Horvat scored on his own rebound 55 seconds into the second period.

New York took a two-goal advantage when former Lightning forward Anthony Duclair broke up Pontus Holmberg’s attempt to get the puck out of the Tampa Bay end, then saw the puck return to his stick for a wrist shot from the left hash 5:30 into the third period.

The Lightning power play wasn’t able to make good on three man-advantage opportunities, managing just two shots on goal in six minutes of power-play time. Their power play is 1 for 12 over the past five games.

Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin stopped 29 of 30 shots, his only blemish when James curled around the back of the net and scored from a tight angle from below the right circle on a shot that went off Sorokin near post and in.

Vasilevskiy’s personal win streak ended at six games, despite allowing two or fewer goals for the sixth time in his last seven games. He stopped 21 of 23 shots.

In the final minutes, the Islanders missed an empty net twice, and the Lightning had a flurry of shots at Sorokin, including two looks from the slot by Brandon Hagel and Jake Guentzel’s quality chance from the right post.

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