Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings: Road trip ends at Little Caesar’s

Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings: GAME# 42

Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Little Caesars Arena

Broadcast/Streaming: SunS, FSDT

Opponent SBNation Site: Winging It In Motown

The Tampa Bay Lightning head into Detroit on one of their rare two-game losing streaks, meeting a Red Wings team on a four-game win streak. But how rare is the losing streak? This is only the second time this season the Bolts have lost twice in a row. The Red Wings saw the loss of starting goaltender Jimmy Howard in Friday’s game against the Florida Panthers, however, and tonight the Bolts will face our old playoffs friend, Petr Mrazek.

Young Mrazek has not been doing well this season, and will likely want to prove himself in net tonight. In 11 games played backing up Howard, he’s had a .892 SV% and 3.64 goals-against average. It’s possible that Cooper will see the success that Boucher had riding Craig Anderson for two nights in a row and put Andrei Vasilevskiy in net after his 6-3 drubbing. But if not...

...Bolts Nation might get to see Louis Domingue make his debut in net for Tampa. JustinG wrote a good article describing Domingue, and the part relevant today is here:

So who is Louis Boileau-Domingue? He is a 2010 fifth round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes. He has 84 games of NHL experience and enjoyed his best season in 2015-16 when he appeared in 39 games for the Coyotes, posting a 2.75 GAA and .912 SV%. His numbers dipped a bit in 2016-17 and he quickly became the odd man out when Arizona traded for Antti Raanta in the offseason. After struggling through 7 games to start this season he was demoted to the AHL and then traded to Syracuse, where he has been pretty good.

[....] It seems his time in Syracuse may have helped him find a fix to some of [his] flaws. Goalie Coach Karl Goehring described his recent play with the Crunch thus: “I think from his game standpoint, (he’s) very quick, very athletic. So I think that helps him be calm because he can get to his spots, get across the crease very quickly. So, that certainly helps him stay calm and be patient to read the play. And that’s a big attribute that he has.’’

Cooper had hard words for the team after last night’s loss, and called out the team’s leadership to be more defensively accountable. In his words:

I think there’s a little bit of entitlement running through our team right now. What’s a little discouraging is our goaltender who’s been, in my opinion, our MVP this year and for us to let him down like that, those goals going in the start of the period were men’s league goals, and that’s just a non-commitment to playing in your own end.

To win in this league, you have to play in your own end. There’s a group of guys that are going to have to circle the wagons in there, the leaders, and figure this one out because we’re just going down a road right now, it’s that part of that season right now where you just can’t let things slide.

The regular season, you can’t win a Stanley Cup in the regular season. You have to get to the playoffs first. And I think there’s a team in there that thinks we’ve already made the playoffs. And with that attitude, we’re not going to go anywhere.

I feel bad for our goaltender. Can’t spot them a 3-0 lead in this league and expect to come back. Give them a little credit for coming back, but in the end, the same mistakes cost us and give Ottawa credit, they didn’t care who they were playing. They just came out and played a hockey game and won it. So good on them.

So. Even if the Bolts are 1-4-1 in the second half of back-to-backs so far this season, let’s play some actual hockey.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Forward Lines

Vladislav Namestnikov — Steven Stamkos — Nikita Kucherov

Ondrej Palat — Brayden Point — Tyler Johnson

Alex Killorn — Yanni Gourde — Cory Conacher

Chris Kunitz — Cedric Paquette — Ryan Callahan

Defense Pairings

Victor Hedman — Jake Dotchin

Mikhail Sergachev — Anton Stralman

Slater Koekkoek — Dan Girardi

Goaltenders

Louis Domingue

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Lineup notes:

Will Braydon Coburn be back in the lineup, or will Koekkoek-Girardi stick? It’s possible that after last night’s defeat at the hands of the Ottawa Senators, Coach Cooper will shake things up.

Detroit Red Wings

Forward Lines

Gustav Nyquist Henrik Zetterberg Tyler Bertuzzi

Tomas Tatar Dylan Larkin Andreas Athanasiou

Darren Helm Frans Nielsen Justin Abdelkader

Martin Frk Anthony Mantha

Defense

Jonathan Ericsson Trevor Daley

Danny DeKeyser Mike Green

Niklas Kronwall Nick Jensen

Xavier Ouellet

Goaltenders

Petr Mrazek

Guy from AHL (From JJ: “Haven’t heard anything yet. Their AHL team is in Chicago tonight and I think Jared Coreau is in net.”)

Lineup notes:

From the Detroit News:

Howard, who has been arguably the Red Wings’ best player during their current four-game winning streak — he has stopped 145 of 153 shots (.948 save percentage) — was hurt in the second period of Friday’s 4-2 victory over Florida. (....) Mrazek has only played 11 games this season, with a 3.64 goal-against average and .892 save percentage.