Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings: Bolts look to extend their point streak against Detroit

Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings: GAME 25

Time: 7:30 pm ET

Location: Little Caesars Arena

Broadcast/Streaming: FS-SUN

Opponent SB Nation Site: Winging It In Motown

Despite owning an impressive 20-game point streak against the Detroit Red Wings, the last game against them wasn’t an easy contest for the Tampa Bay Lightning. For the second consecutive game, the Lightning needed to overcome a scoring gap after allowing a goal early in the game.

It wasn’t the best game of the season for the Red Wings against the Lightning – in their previous meeting on February 5 the Red Wings statistically put a much better effort, controlling the quality of shots with 76.92 xGF%. However this time Detroit managed to stay consistent and fell short of winning, but managed to walk away with a loser point.

Tyler Johnson played one of his best games this season so far on Tuesday. He scored a goal in the second period, giving the Bolts a lead for the first time in the game, and later recorded an assist on the overtime goal by Blake Coleman. Once again he proved himself a very useful player after returning to his natural position as a centre forward. Another one of Jon Cooper’s brilliant move is Yanni Gourde centering the second line. His line with Alex Killorn and Steven Stamkos was the best in terms of possession, controlling 64.71 CF% at 5v5 during the last game. This has gone mostly unnoticed, but Yanni Gourde’s defensive impact has been huge this season, he has been also very useful on the second power play unit.

The Lightning also continued rotating their young players on the fourth line. This time Alex Barre-Boulet got a chance, while Alex Volkov was scratched. Despite playing in 15 less games, Barre-Boulet has been given more time on power play than Alex Volkov. Overall Alex Volkov’s time has also dropped drastically, since scoring three goals in two games in February he hasn’t recorded any points and has played about seven minutes in his previous three games. The Lightning recently recalled Taylor Raddysh, who could also receive some ice time in next games. Ross Colton is remaining on the Lightning’s taxi squad too.

Tonight’s game will be the last game of the Lightning’s longest road trip this season. On Saturday the Lightning will return to Amalie Arena for the first home game in front of fans in more than a year.

Projected Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Lines

(based on the previous game)

Forwards

Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Anthony Cirelli

Alex Killorn - Yanni Gourde - Steven Stamkos

Barclay Goodrow - Tyler Johnson - Blake Coleman

Pat Maroon - Mathieu Joseph - Alex Barre-Boulet

Defense

Victor Hedman - Jan Rutta

Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak

Mikhail Sergachev - Cal Foote

Goalies

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Curtis McElhinney

Detroit Red Wings Lines

(based on the previous game)

Forwards

Robby Fabbri - Dylan Larkin - Anthony Mantha

Bobby Ryan - Vladislav Namestnikov - Filip Zadina

Mathias Brome - Michael Rasmussen - Sam Gagner

Darren Helm - Luke Glendening - Adam Erne

Defense

Danny DeKeyser - Filip Hronek

Marc Staal - Jon Merrill

Patrik Nemeth - Christian Djoos

Goalies

Jonathan Bernier

Thomas Greiss