The Backcheck: Lightning lock up a playoff spot with shutout of Isles

For the sixth-straight season the Tampa Bay Lightning are heading to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Going into Saturday night's game against the New York Islanders, it was simple for the Bolts. Win and you're in. The Lightning didn't need to rely on help from other teams after skating to a third-consecutive win with a 5-0 shutout over the Islanders.

As we've seen over the past four games, the Bolts did what makes them successful on Saturday night and took care of things in their own end before worrying about what's going to happen on the other end of the rink.
The Islanders are a tough team to score against and play strong defense, so it was important for Tampa Bay to stay patient and trust the process, knowing the offense will come if they take care of the defensive zone first.
That's exactly what the Bolts did and they got rewarded with 2:07 remaining in the opening period when Mikhail Sergachev took a pass from Ross Colton and sent a shot on goal from the point that found its way past Ilya Sorokin to give Tampa Bay the 1-0 lead.
It was a great play by Colton, who intercepted a breakout pass from Sorokin and fed Darren Raddysh at the point. After Raddysh sent a pass to Sergachev, the goal scorer fired a shot on net that was stopped by Sorokin. But again, Colton outworked the opponent, won a race to the loose puck, fed a pass up to Sergachev and watched his shot open the scoring.

Raddysh collected his first career point with the secondary assist on the goal and has continued to look impressive skating on a pair with Sergachev.
"I think he's brought outstanding chemistry with Sergy, I'll tell you that," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "Those two have been a pretty formidable pair and they've been playing both ends of the rink, both offense and defense has been outstanding."
Sergachev continues to impress with his play on the blue line. Since March 1, his 17 assists are tied with Cale Makar for the second-most among all NHL defensemen, and his play in the defensive zone has looked strong as well.
"He's blossoming into one of the best D in the league," said Cooper. "You get that one-two punch of him and Heddy and surround them with smart players. Those guys have really kind of turned their game up a notch here down the stretch."
After taking a 1-0 lead into the first intermission, Tampa Bay took over in the second period, outscoring New York 3-0 to go up 4-0 ahead of the third period.
The goal that put the Bolts up 2-0 was a big one, as Tanner Jeannot got his first goal in a Lightning sweater off a nice little pass from Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.
Taking the puck near the left circle, Bellemare skated all the way around the New York net and wired a pass towards the slot, where Jeannot had found a soft spot in between multiple defenders before banging home his sixth goal of the season.
You could feel the weight lifted off Jeannot's shoulders as he let out a big yell of excitement. That may have been his first goal with the Bolts, but the chances have been piling up for Jeannot over the past several games. Not only has he been a massive presence on the ice from a physical standpoint, but it looks like he's starting to figure out the system and has been putting himself in good positions to score.
"It was a little bit of a learning curve, just coming in and trying to learn the new systems, playing with different players and things like that," said Jeannot. "But the group has been really good and the coaches have been really good about just telling me to play my game and do what I'm good at.

"That's what I've been focusing on, just trying to be a little bit more relaxed and keep it simple."
Over the past several years, we've heard players that have been acquired by the Lightning talk about how the other players in the locker room have done such a great job making them feel welcomed and comfortable.
We're seeing that in the play of Jeannot and Raddysh, who continue to look more and more composed on the ice every game.
"I've said this year in and year out," said Cooper. "It's a 10-game window before you even start to see where things go with the players - when they start to feel comfortable and when you start to kind of know what they bring to the table.
"I think we're seeing that, definitely, with Tanner. Talk about a balloon of frustration popping when he scored that goal. The guys on the bench were so fired up for him.
"Raddy too. Raddy gets his first NHL points.
"You know you've got a good group of guys when they're really pulling for guys to get those pseudo-milestones, so it's great to see."
Nikita Kucherov continued his excellent season and made it a 3-0 game when he took an impressive stretch pass from Brayden Point and skated in all alone on Sorokin before beating him to the blocker side for his 29th goal of the season.
Sergachev picked up the secondary helper for his 50th assist of the season, marking the first time he's hit the 50-assist milestone in a single season and making him just the second defenseman in franchise history to do so, along with Victor Hedman.
When you play the right way, you earn your puck luck, and the Bolts got some just 1:48 after the Kucherov goal when a back door pass from Raddysh went off the skate of Steven Stamkos and into the back of the net to give the Lightning a 4-0 lead and end Sorokin's night.
With 6:34 remaining in regulation, Point added one last goal for Tampa Bay, his 48th tally of the season and 19th power-play goal of the campaign, taking a pass from Kucherov and sniping one right past the blocker of Semyon Varlamov.
You can't talk about a shutout win without mentioning Andrei Vasilevskiy, who was excellent for the Lightning once again with a 38-save shutout, the fourth-most saves he's had in a shutout in the regular season.

Vasilevskiy has given up just one goal in the past three games with two shutouts and a .990 save percentage.
"I think what you're seeing is we're helping him out more," said Cooper. "With Vas, he's human. I mean, he's superhuman, but he's still human.
"The chances we've given up on rushes and things like that, when you start cutting those out, Vas usually takes care of the rest.
"I think we've helped him out and I think he's appreciative of it. We think he's the best goalie in the world, but even the best goalies in the world need you to play a little bit of defense and we've been doing that."
With a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs clinched, the Bolts will get some well-deserved time off with three days before their next game, a road clash with the New York Rangers on Wednesday, followed by another meeting with the Islanders on Thursday.
One thing Bolts fans will want to keep an eye on is the health of Sergachev, who exited the game with a lower-body injury with about 7:30 remaining in regulation. He did not return and Cooper did not have an update following the game.