Bolts are very familiar with their Semifinal opponent

Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper and New York Islanders bench boss Barry Trotz have faced off against each other in the conference final/semifinal round in three of the last four seasons.
In 2018, it was Trotz's Washington Capitals that rallied from a 3-2 deficit in the Eastern Conference Final to win the final two games in the series by a combined 7-0 on their way to the Capitals' first Stanley Cup championship.
Last season, the Lightning upended the Islanders in six games in the Conference Final to reach the Stanley Cup Final, where they would defeat the Dallas Stars in six games to lift the organization's second Cup. Trotz took over as the Islanders' head coach following his Stanley Cup win in Washington, where he has remained since.
And once again, the two head coaches have their teams poised to return to the Cup Final as the Lightning and Islanders will meet in the 2021 Stanley Cup Semifinals, a rematch of their Conference Final from a year earlier.
To say the coaches know each other well would be an understatement.

And the teams too, despite not playing each other during the regular season because of the reconfigured regular season schedule where teams only played division opponents. The Lightning resided in the Central Division this season; New York was in the East.
The Islanders bring back nearly the same group that extended the Lightning to six games in the 2020 Eastern Conference Final, the final two games needing extra time to produce a winner. The Bolts missed out on a chance to close out the series in five games when the Isles scored a double overtime victory in Game 5. Tampa Bay clinched the series on Anthony Cirelli's overtime winner in Game 6.
Tampa Bay has a similar team back to defend its Stanley Cup championship too.
"The goalies are the same," Cooper said during an off day media call Thursday. "For the most part, they've probably, I haven't done the math, but they've probably got more pieces together than we do, but it would be very similar. I know they're missing Anders Lee right now [Lee had season-ending ACL surgery roughly three months ago] but have picked up a couple of quality guys in (Kyle) Palmieri and (Travis) Zajac. Their D corps is primarily the same. And we're very similar as well. Two teams that know each other whether we played each other last week or last month or three months ago, it doesn't really matter. We know what to expect from them and they know what to expect from us."
The Islanders were arguably Tampa Bay's toughest challenge in the Bolts' run to the 2020 Stanley Cup. After dispatching the Columbus Blue Jackets and Boston Bruins in five games in the First and Second Rounds, respectively, the Lightning raced out to a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Final versus New York, dismantling the Isles 8-2 in Game 1 and building on the lead with a 2-1 win in Game 2, punctuated by Nikita Kucherov's game-winning goal with nine seconds remaining in regulation. New York got back into the series with a 5-3 win in Game 3, but the Lightning moved to within a game of the Stanley Cup Final with a dominant 4-1 win in Game 4.
The Islanders wouldn't go away quietly, however.
Jordan Eberle scored a double overtime goal in Game 5 to keep their hopes alive, and they were one well-placed shot away from forcing a do-or-die Game 7 until Cirelli set up at the edge of the crease 13:18 into overtime of Game 6 and redirected Barclay Goodrow's feed from behind the net off the far post, the puck sliding across the goal line and off the left leg pad of Isles goalie Semyon Varlamov before completely crossing the line for the series winner.
"They're like a really good team," Cooper said. "Look at the players they have. That Cizikas line [Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin] has been regarded for years as the best bottom six line in the league. They have talent. They have guys that work. They've got Mathew Barzal who gets tons of praise for his skill level. Brock Nelson's really come into his own as a player. You go down the list. (Josh) Bailey puts the puck in the net, (Anthony) Beauvillier, Jordan Eberle. They have a talented, talented group. You don't get this far without those guys. (Adam) Pelech is an excellent defender. Nick Leddy's won Cups. (Ryan) Pulock, the one year they didn't make it (to the playoffs) was a star at the World Championships. They have a bevy of talent there, and they have a coach that pushes them all in the right direction and that's why they're good. You have to have some talent on your roster to win, and they have it. They've got it all going in the right direction and they have a general manager there that knows how to win as well and gets all the right pieces. I don't think there should be any surprise that the Islanders are where they are year after year."
The Islanders finished as the fourth and final team from the East Division to qualify for the postseason with a 32-17-7 record (71 pts.) but rallied from a 2-1 deficit to defeat top-seeded Pittsburgh in six games in the opening round and did the same against the third-seeded Boston Bruins in the Second Round.
New York has been bolstered by its fans at Nassau Coliseum, the Islanders in their final season of play at the venerable rink. The Isles will move to the 17,000 seat UBS Arena near Belmont Park race track next season. The Islanders are 4-2 at the Coliseum this postseason and have closed out both of their early round playoff series on home ice.
Tampa Bay, however, hasn't been overwhelmed by opposing crowds this postseason.
The Lightning are 5-1 in road contests, including taking all three games at Raleigh's PNC Arena in front of the boisterous Caniacs in a 4-1 series win over the Carolina Hurricanes in the Second Round.
"The playoffs have been fun this year just because Florida was unique, they were one of the first teams to start jamming people in there and it was an awesome environment," Cooper said. "And then we went to Carolina, which I think if you watched on TV pretty much spoke for itself how cool that environment was. And Nassau, very similar to Carolina, kind of a smaller rink with a tighter atmosphere and a loud, fun crowd. We're slowly getting back used to (fans in the building), but ultimately the way to keep the crowd down is don't let their team score on you and that's a lot easier said than done."
The Lightning are perfect against the Islanders in the postseason, going 3-0 in three previous series. Both times the Lightning won a Stanley Cup, they had to get past the Isles to lift it with last season's win in the Eastern Conference Final and a 4-1 series win in the Conference Quarterfinal round in 2004.
Tampa Bay also defeated the Islanders 4-1 in a 2016 Eastern Conference Semifinal.