Senators at Lightning Previews: Tampa Bay looks to find a way to begin again after loss to Florida

Game #57 – Ottawa Senators (22-27-2) at Tampa Bay Lightning (30-21-5)
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Amalie Arena
Broadcast/Streaming: NHL Network, BSSUN,

Opponent’s Site: Silver Seven Sens

Preview

Tonight’s match-up is one of those quietly important games that sneak up from time to time throughout a season. On paper, the Lightning should be favored to win this game, after all, despite their inconsistent play all season, they are in a playoff spot while the Senators are in last place in the division and in 28th spot in the league.

That does not mean the Senators are a pushover, just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs who lost to them 5-3 a couple of weekends ago. You remember that game, right? It’s the Ridley Greig slapshot game that caused a kerfuffle around the league last week:

Of course, there is a reason they are a lottery team, and they showed that with losses to two of the four teams below them in the standings – the Anaheim Ducks and the Chicago Blackhawks. To their credit, they played pretty well against Chicago, but Petr Mrazek goalie’d them with 40 saves in a 3-2 win for the Blackhawks.

For the Lightning, it will be a gut-check game for them after the Florida Panthers Zamboni-ed them all around the arena on Saturday night. As Coach Cooper put it after the game,

“They just outskated us, they won their puck battles, they won the special team war. If there’s a TV timeout to be won, they won that, too. They had the puck luck on their side with a couple go off us, but for 59 minutes and 36 seconds, one team was better…”

He was also looking forward to the game against the Senators,

“For us to keep our push going, we need points. We didn’t get any [Saturday night]. The score doesn’t matter. It’s how we respond to Monday and that’s a cool challenge ahead. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

The last time the Lightning lost a game like this was against the Dallas Stars in the beginning of December. Following the 8-1 loss, they responded with a 4-0 win over the Stars and a 3-1 win over the Penguins. A few weeks later (after an up-and-down West Coast trip) they kick-started their season and started winning a bunch of games.

Quite frankly, the Lightning have to be the faster team tonight. When they push play and dictate the pace of the game, they are one of the best teams in the league. On the other hand, when they sit back, things go badly. We saw that in the first match-up between these two teams back in October, a 5-2 loss in Ottawa where the Brady Tkachuk/Claude Giroux/Tim Stutzle line went full HAM with 13 shots, 12 scoring chances, 6 high-danger chances, and 2 goals.

The good news for the Lightning is that the line has been broken up with the return of Josh Norris, who is centering Tkachuck and Drake Batherson these days with old friend Mathieu Joseph taking Tkachuk’s spot with Stutzle and Giroux. Ottawa also has Shane Pinto back from his suspension. The Senators are rolling out their intended line-up for the first time pretty much all season, so they are a bit deeper throughout their lines, which could pose some interesting match-up issues for Coach Cooper.

The Lightning will look to counter with some depth scoring of their own. They’re kind of slipping back into their old habit of relying mostly on the top-two lines and the power play to provide the offense. While that’s all well and good on a night-to-night basis, in the long run they will need some scoring from the bottom-six. Injuries to players on the third and fourth lines haven’t helped, but they need to start seeing some goals from players like Tyler Motte and Conor Sheary (who I thought played pretty well against Colorado).

Tampa Bay has to force Ottawa to make mistakes tonight instead of it being the other way around. When a team pushes play like that, they generate more chances, and it seems they start to get the puck bouncing their way as well. A solid effort from the Lightning will bode well for them as they tackle the final 20+ games of the regular season. If they come out flat, maybe it’s time to really start worrying.

Stats Match-up

Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines

Forwards
Steven Stamkos – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Nick Paul
Mikey Eyssimont – Tyler Motte – Conor Sheary

Alex Barré-Boulet – Luke Glendening – Mitchell Chaffee

Defenders
Victor Hedman – Darren Raddysh
Calvin de Haan – Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg – Nick Perbix

Goalies
Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Ottawa Senators Projected Lines

Forwards
Brady Tkachuk – Josh Norris – Drake Batherson

Mathieu Joseph – Tim Stutzle – Claude Giroux

Ridly Greig – Shane Pinto – Vladimir Tarasenko

Dominik Kubalik – Mark Kastelic – Parkey Kelly

Defenders
Jake Sanderson – Artem Zub

Thomas Chabot – Jakob Chychrun

Erik Brannstrom – Travis Harmonic

Goalies

Joonas Korpisalo

Anton Forsberg

The Playoff Race