Carolina Hurricanes at Tampa Bay Lightning Preview and Game Day Thread

Carolina Hurricanes at Tampa Bay Lightning: GAME# 9

Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Amalie Arena

Broadcast/Streaming: BSSUNX, BSSO

Opponent SBNation Site: Canes Country

DraftKings Line: Lightning -1.5 O/U 6.5

Preview:

After winning five of their last six games, the Tampa Bay Lightning have significantly improved their position in the standings. For the first time this season, the Lightning are sitting in a playoff spot. Three of their previous wins were, however, against the teams with .500 and less point percentage. Tonight the Lightning will face one of the league leaders — the Carolina Hurricanes.

Besides other things, the Bolts have notably improved their performance at 5v5. They outplayed their opponents in CF% at 5v5 in the last three games and lost only to the Ottawa Senators in expected goal share over the same span. The Lightning’s top line of Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov played a significant role in that. According to Moneypuck.com, their line is in top-5 in the NHL in expected goals for per 60 minutes. Not only their underlying stats have been great recently, but they finally started converting it in actual goals. After six goalless games at the beginning of the season, Nikita Kucherov scored a goal in each of his last four games. Out of 10 games this season, Kucherov left the ice without a point only in one game (against the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 14)

While the Lightning’s 5-on-5 performance have bounced back recently, the power play have slowed down. Against the Senators they scored just one power play goal, despite having eight opportunities and even allowed a shorthanded goal. The main scoring force of the Lightning, Steven Stamkos has also been unusually quiet lately: after scoring seven goals in five games at the start of the regular season, he only recorded two assists in next five games.

As of now there is no update on Victor Hedman’s status. The Lightning defenceman missed the last game with an upper-body injury and listed as day-to-day currently.

The Carolina Hurricanes have been one of the better teams at the start of this season. They’re currently 6-2-1 after first games and with .722 point percentage they’re trailing only the Boston Bruins in Eastern Conference. Traditionally, the team is very strong in possession department, leading the whole league with 63.52 CF% at 5v5. The special units and goaltending have been pretty average comparing to league’s standards, but their 5v5 performance is compensating for that.

Martin Necas seems to be having a breakout season with a team-leading 13 points in nine games so far. Andrei Svechnikov has also a great start of the season with eight goals in nine games. Brent Burns immediately became a great fit for the team, leading all Carolina defenceman with seven points. On the other side some players as Teuvo Teravainen has a slow start of the season. The Finnish forward has only three points in nine games. The Canes are also missing several key players as Jake Gardiner and newly acquired Ondrej Kase and Max Pacioretty. Pacioretty is expected to miss the first half of the season.

The long awaited Reverse Retro storm jersey will also debut in tonight’s game

Tampa Bay vs. Carolina Comparison

Game # 11	Tampa Bay Lightning	Carolina Hurricanes
Overall Record	6-4-0	6-2-1
Home Record	2-1-0	2-1-0
Road Record	4-3-0	4-1-1
Goals For	32	28
Goals Against	31	25
xGF	33.48	31.58
xGA	32.72	22.99
PP%	21.4%	17.1%
PK%	82.4%	79.4%

Tampa Bay Lightning

Forward Lines

Brandon Hagel – Braydon Point – Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn – Nick Paul – Steven Stamkos

Ross Colton – Vlad Namestnikov – Cole Koepke

Pat Maroon – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Corey Perry

Defense Pairings

Ian Cole – Erik Cernak

Mikhail Sergachev – Nick Perbix

Haydn Fleury – Cal Foote

Goaltenders

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Brian Elliott