Blue Jackets at Lightning Preview: Lightning have room to breathe, but can’t lose focus

Game #78 – Columbus Blue Jackets at Tampa Bay Lightning
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Amalie Arena
Broadcast/Streaming: BSSUN, BSOH, ESPN+, HULU

Opponent’s Site: Jackets’ Cannon

Preview

It’s going to be an interesting game for the Tampa Bay Lightning. They are back at home after a successful road trip and a couple of days off. They’ve clinched a playoff spot and pretty much locked into the first wild card spot. Tonight they kick off their final stretch of regular season games against the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team that is, how can we say this nicely? Not experiencing their most successful season.

Can the Lightning find the drive needed to win a hockey game that they probably don’t have a lot invested in? Over the last two months they’ve been playing at a near-playoff level as they’ve secured their spot in the postseason. With that wrapped up, that pressure isn’t quite there any longer and it’s a natural reaction to relax a bit. They can do that, heck, they need to do that to avoid burning themselves out over the next 10 days, but they also have to make sure they are not developing bad habits.

After a bit of a sloppy start in their loss to the Penguins on Saturday, they finished with a pretty strong third period, so that’s a good sign that the veterans on the team aren’t going to let them mail in the rest of the season. Another good sign is that some of their dinged-up players were at practice on Monday. Anthony Cirelli and Tanner Jeannot were in their usual spots and should be good to go tonight. Haydn Fleury and Jonas Johansson were not on the ice.

For the Blue Jackets, it’s been a miserable year. Things started off with the coaching fiasco as Mike Babcock was hired and let go before the season started. Injuries have cost them players like Patrik Laine, Boone Jenner, and Yegor Chinakov. One of their lone bright spots in the season, rookie Adam Fantilli is also out and may not return for the season after his rehab from a calf laceration is taking longer than expected. At this point, why even bring him back?

The combo of Malcolm Subban and Jet Greaves was expected to lead their AHL franchise, the Cleveland Monsters, not the NHL version. Unfortunately, injuries to Elvis Merzlikins and Danil Tarasov have led to Subban and Greaves joining the roster. Oddly enough, the Blue Jackets injury struggles have aided the Lightning’s AHL partner, the Syracuse Crunch. With all of the injury call-ups the Monsters have tumbled in the standings, allowing Syracuse to take over the division lead.

The Bolts can’t express any sympathy for them. The next five games is about tuning up for the playoffs and expect Coach Cooper to have his team focusing on the basic parts of the game – clean breakouts, puck management, and winning 50/50 battles. If the Bolts can do that tonight, they should be able to pick up their 44th win of the season.

Stats Match-up

Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines

Forwards
Anthony Duclair- Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Steven Stamkos
Mikey Eyssimont – Nick Paul – Mitchell Chaffee

Tyler Motte – Luke Glendening – Tanner Jeannot

Defenders
Victor Hedman – Darren Raddysh
Matt Dumba- Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg – Nick Perbix

Goalies
Andrei Vasilevskiy

Matt Tomkins

Columbus Blue Jackets Projected Lines

Forwards
Johnny Gaudreau – Dmitri Voronkov – Alex Nylander

Alexandre Texier – Cole Sillinger – Kirill Marchenko

Mathieu Olivier – Justin Danforth – Mikael Pyyhtia

Carson Meyer – Brendan Gaunce – James Malatesta

Defenders

Zach Werenski – Damon Severson

Ivan Provorov – Erik Gudbranson

Nick Blankenberg – David Jiricek

Goalies

Malcolm Subban

Jet Greaves

The Playoff Race