Lightning at Stars Preview and GDT: Can they snap the losing streak today?

Game #25
Time: 2:00 PM EST
Location: Amalie Arena
Broadcast/Streaming: NHL Network

Opponent’s Site: Defending Big D

Preview

The Lightning have worked themselves into a bit of an early season pickle. They’ve dropped their last three games and now face two against the Dallas Stars, one of the best teams in the Western Conference. While you would think today’s game on the road would be the tougher of the two, the Stars have been one of the best road teams in the league with an impressive 8-1-2 mark on the road.

It’s going to be an uphill battle for the Lightning today as the strength of the Stars matches well against the strengths of Tampa Bay. Dallas is good at shutting down teams on the rush, and that’s how the Bolts have been scoring lately, at least when they’ve been able to score.

While no one on the Stars is lighting up the scoring leaderboard, they can run their scoring deep with seven players hitting the 15-point mark this season. Oh, and they have a pretty good goaltender in Jake Oettinger sitting between the pipes.

The Stars have built quite a bit of young talent over the last few years and seem to be poised to make another deep run in the playoffs this year after going to the Western Conference Finals last season. While the ageless Joe Pavelski is leading the team in scoring, the youth is well represented in Jason Robertson (24) and Wyatt Johnston (20).

For the Lightning, there is no magic cure to turning things around. They have been doing a lot of the right things offensively. They are getting shots on net and generating chances. It’s just one of those stretches where the puck isn’t going in the net for them consistently. Defensively, they actually have played reasonably well, even in the loss to Pittsburgh. While they aren’t able to capitalize on their chances, it seems their opponents are hitting the back of the net on every turnover the Bolts committ.

They’re still in a reasonably decent place in the standings, but have to start pulling some of these close games out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to start today.

Stats Match-up

Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines

Forwards
Steven Stamkos – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Michael Eyssimont

Tanner Jeannot – Nick Paul – Alex Barré-Boulet
Cole Koepke- Luke Glendening – Tyler Motte

Defenders
Victor Hedman – Nick Perbix
Mikhail Sergachev – Erik Cernak
Calvin de Haan – Darren Raddysh

Goalies
Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Dallas Stars Projected Lines

Forwards

Jamie Benn – Roope Hintz – Joe Pavelski

Jason Robertson – Wyatt Johnston – Evgenii Dadonov

Mason Marchment – Matt Duchene – Tyler Seguin

Craig Smith – Radek Faska – Sam Steel

Defenders
Ryan Suter – Miro Heiskanen

Esa Lindell – Jani Hakanpaa

Thomas Harley — Nils Lundkvist

Goalies
Jake Oettinger

Scott Wedgewood

Question of the Day

Can the Bolts score more than one 5v5 goal today?