Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning: GAME Thirteen
Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time
Location: Amalie Arena
Broadcast/Streaming: ESPN+, BSSUN, BSFL
Opponent SBNation Site: Litter Box Cats
Three weeks ago the Florida Panthers confidently beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in their first meeting of the season. The Panthers were having one of the strongest starts in their history, while the Lightning struggled to even take a lead in a game. Since that moment things have stabilized a little bit: the Panthers have slowed down, losing three games in a row while the Lightning started consistently racking up points. Tonight the Bolts will try to take revenge for the early season loss to the Panthers.
The Lightning’s head coach Jon Cooper didn’t have an update on Erik Cernak, who left the previous game against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Slovak defenceman is currently considered as week-to-week with an upper body injury. Good thing for the Lightning, Mikhail Sergachev’s two-game suspension is over and he will return to the line-up tonight. Zach Bogosian, who has been out since game one of the season, will be a game-time decision. Yesterday he practiced on the second pair with Ryan McDonagh. Boris Katchouk, who also missed several game, is also healthy and could draw into the line-up if needed.
The game against the Panthers will be a good challenge for the Lightning. So far they dropped four out of six games against the teams considered as strong playoff contenders (Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals). The Bolts seemingly solved their problem of getting a lead in the game, scoring first in six consecutive games, but other issues still actual. The team is still struggling with their power play, going 0-for-4 against the Canes and now ranks just 23rd in the league with 16.22 PP%. The coaching staff tried several combinations on their top power play unit, including putting Brayden Point in Nikita Kucherov’s spot and giving more time to Alex Barre-Boulet, but those changes appear not to work.
Another issue is that the Lightning are getting penalized more than they draw penalties themselves. Taking unnecessary penalties has been an issue for couple of season but with a malfunctioning power play it seems like a more significant issue. The Lightning’s penalty kill units, however, have been pretty strong this season. Despite losing some key shorthanded specialists like Barclay Goodrow or Blake Coleman, the Lightning rank solidly 12th in the league with 83.72 PK% and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare has been a great addition for their penalty kill.
Which teams are drawing more penalties than they’re taking? pic.twitter.com/TjS7tqdBtf
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) November 7, 2021
The Panthers are finishing their four-game road trip with a game against the Bolts tonight, recording just one point on that trip. It’s still early to call that a slump, it’s more of a cooling off after such a strong start, but the Panthers will be eager to take two points against the Lightning. The team is still looking for their 900th franchise win and reaching that milestone in a game against their Sunshine State rival will be very important for them.
The Panthers will be almost at full strength tonight with some exceptions: Mason Marchment and Noel Acciari are not expected to return to the line-up and Joe Thornton has been on injured reserve since the end of October.
Tampa Bay Lightning Lines
Forwards
Ondrej Palat — Brayden Point — Anthony Cirelli
Alex Killorn — Steven Stamkos — Mathieu Joseph
Patrick Maroon — Pierre-Edouard Bellemare — Corey Perry
Taylor Raddysh — Ross Colton — Alex Barre-Boulet
Defense
Victor Hedman — Jan Rutta
Ryan McDonagh — Zach Bogosian (?)
Mikhail Sergachev — Cal Foote
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Brian Elliott
Florida Panthers Lines
Forwards
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Anthony Duclair
Jonathan Huberdeau — Sam Bennett — Owen Tippett
Frank Vatrano — Anton Lundell — Sam Reinhart
Ryan Lomberg — Eetu Luostarinen — Patric Hornqvist
Defense
Mackenzie Weegar — Aaron Ekblad
Gustav Forsling — Radko Gudas
Kevin Connauton — Brandon Montour
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
