All the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders wanted was for Sunday to matter. It won't.

Both clubs were eliminated from postseason contention Saturday night after the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-3 to claim the NHL's final playoff spot.

Jon Cooper and Doug Weight's teams played excellent hockey - Nikita Kucherov and Jaroslav Halak, in particular - down the stretch, but it wasn't enough.

The Lightning have 92 points. They had 97 last season, losing the Eastern Conference Final in seven games to the Penguins - the eventual Stanley Cup champions. In other words, more pain for Tampa Bay at the hands of Pittsburgh.

In Brooklyn, the Islanders made a spirited run with Weight behind the bench, even winning four straight to keep the dream alive after captain John Tavares was hurt and lost for the remainder of the regular season on March 31. There's no quit in that club.

The veteran goalie Halak, exiled to the AHL earlier in the season, was the catalyst for the Isles' strong finish, going 6-1 since his recall. He's been superb in April, posting a marvelous .961 save percentage in four wins.

There's going to be a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking with respect to Halak. If the Islanders had called him up sooner, who knows how this race would have ended.

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