St. Louis Blues at Tampa Bay Lightning preview: Time for a rematch

St. Louis Blues at Tampa Bay Lightning: GAME 22

Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Amalie Arena

Broadcast/Streaming: SUN, FS-MW

Opponent SBNation Site: St. Louis Game Time

Preview:

The opportunity for redemption has come sooner than most thought, as the Tampa Bay Lightning will this time host the reigning Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues in the teams’ second meeting in nine days.

The first meeting of the season was a 3-1 loss for the Bolts. The Lightning started that game off strong, but after Nikita Kucherov was injured, things took a turn for the worse. However, Kucherov is back in the lineup and Tampa Bay has rattled off three straight wins since then, and are looking to increase their win streak.

It was announced (very) late Tuesday afternoon that defenseman Erik Cernak would miss the Bolts next two games. He was suspended as a result of elbowing Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin in the head. Fortunately for Tampa, even with Cernak out, they are still carrying seven defensemen. Jon Cooper has been running 11 forwards and seven defensemen lately, but that could change with Cernak out for the next two games.

Meanwhile, the Blues are just as unhealthy as they were last week as Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Steen remain out of the lineup. The Blues are coming to town on a two-game losing streak, but despite injuries to two of their top players, St. Louis still sits atop the Central Division with 34 points.

Steven Stamkos missed yet another practice yesterday with an undisclosed injury and isn’t expected to play tonight. It would be the third straight game that the Bolts captain has missed since being injured in Chicago, and obviously, there’s growing concern for Stamkos’ health.

Tampa Bay Lightning (12-7-2)

Forwards

Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn - Anthony Cirelli - Mathieu Joseph

Patrick Maroon - Cedric Paquette - Yanni Gourde

Carter Verhaeghe - Tyler Johnson - Cory Conacher

Injured: Steven Stamkos

Defense

Victor Hedman - Kevin Shattenkirk

Ryan McDonagh - Braydon Coburn

Mikhail Sergachev - Luke Schenn

Jan Rutta

Suspended: Erik Cernak

Goaltenders

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Curtis McElhinney

St. Louis Blues (14-5-6)

Forwards

Jaden Schwartz - Brayden Schenn - Tyler Bozak

Ivan Barbashev - Ryan O’Reilly - David Perron

Zach Sanford - Robert Thomas - Oskar Sundqvist

Mackenzie MacEachern - Jacob De La Rose - Troy Brouwer

Injured: Alex Steen, Vladimir Tarasenko, Sammy Blais

Defense

Carl Gunnarsson - Alex Pietrangelo

Jay Bouwmeester - Colton Parayko

Vince Dunn - Justin Faulk

Goaltenders

Jordan Binnington

Jake Allen