Nelson probably was still chugging water on the Islanders bench when Blake Coleman tied the game at 11:42, 15 seconds after he gave New York the lead in a game it needed to even the best-of-7 series. He hopped right back over the boards and had a front-row seat for Ondrej Palat's go-ahead goal 12 seconds after that.
Twenty-seven seconds. That's all it took for the Islanders to go from being ahead to falling behind in a game they ultimately lost 4-1, which has them on the brink of elimination.
Game 5 is in Edmonton, the hub city for the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final, on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVAS).
"You want to follow up a goal with a good shift and have a good response and kind of stay on it," Nelson said. "They had a better response than we did and got two quick ones, and that was the difference. Really, 30 seconds there, if you can hang on there for a bit, it's a different game."
RELATED: [Complete Lightning vs. Islanders series coverage]
The Lightning responded after Nelson ripped a wrist shot past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to make it 1-0. New York won the ensuing face-off, but Yanni Gourde collected the puck from behind his own goal line and lofted it into New York's end. Coleman blew past defenseman Devon Toews and slipped a backhand past goalie Semyon Varlamov, who couldn't poke check it away.
Palat then quickly gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead on a one-timer after Nikita Kucherov drew two defenders, leaving Palat alone in the left circle.
"The most important shift was probably the shift after the goal, and we failed it twice," Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield said. "They put two in, a quick 30 seconds there, and it's tough. We got the momentum a little bit with [Nelson's] goal, and we go out there next shift and they make a good play, it bounces to them on a breakaway and it's in the back of our net. You've got to make sure that shift after a goal is the most important. We didn't do that tonight."
The Islanders were provided an opportunity to tie it shortly thereafter when Lightning defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk shot the puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. They had one shot on goal on the power play, which ended 17 seconds prematurely after Mathew Barzal held Tampa Bay defenseman Luke Schenn's stick.
Lightning center Brayden Point, who was unfit to play Game 3, made it 3-1 at 3:33 of the third period.
New York was 0-for-3 with the man-advantage in Game 4 and is 1-for-14 in the series. Tampa Bay was also 0-for-3, but its top line of Point (one goal, one assist), Palat (one goal, one assist) and Kucherov (two assists) combined for six points at even strength.
"Take the first game out (an 8-2 loss), I think we've been pretty close to even against a very good power play," Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. "Today, they didn't get one, we didn't get one, so the game was 5-on-5. In that 27-second span, they got two quick goals. Our response after our goal was not good. It put us in a hole, and then we gave up the third one and that was a big hill to climb."
