Lightning look to get the season going as Blackhawks come to town

Game Seven: Chicago Blackhawks (3-2-2) at Tampa Bay Lightning (1-3-2)

Time: 6:45 PM

Location: Benchmark International Arena, The Big Guava!

TV/Stream/Radio: ESPN+, HULU, 102.5 FM

Odds: Lightning -300

Know the Opponents: Second City Hockey

To go behind the scenes a little with these previews, we routinely post the Lightning’s betting odds (per Hard Rock Bet) for every game simply because that way we can put “betting odds” in the URL and maybe scrounge up an extra page view or three. We really don’t pay them much attention since we’re not a gambling advice website (unless you’re looking to do the opposite of what we recommend) and there are usually better bets to make than betting on the puckline.

Still, we do also use it a little to see what the sharps are thinking about the Lightning on a 20,000-foot level. Color us surprised when we popped open the app this morning and saw the Bolts as -300 favorites. Nothing that we’ve personally seen from Tampa Bay this season would ever give us reason to bet them as 3-to-1 favorites against any team in the league, including Chicago, San Jose, or Pittsburgh.

Yet, here we are. Now, keep in mind, when sports betting sites set these lines, they don’t give a flying canard who actually wins the game, they just want the bets to come down roughly 50/50 on each side. So, in short, they are setting the line based on public opinion. And if you, as a casual sports better, haven’t been paying attention to the first three weeks of the season, you may see a Lightning/Blackhawks match-up and assume the Lightning will win going away. Hence, Hard Rock Bet has to set a higher odds on the Lightning to make you think twice about taking them straight up.

After dropping their first three games to Florida, Boston (overtime), and Montreal, the ‘Hawks have bounced back with wins over Utah, St. Louis, and Anaheim (with a shoot-out loss to Vancouver mixed in there). Anaheim is still an up-and-coming team, but Utah and St. Louis are on the fringes of being good teams, so those wins are big ones for Chicago, especially since they are also division games for them.

Chicago is young, and they are fast. That second part could trouble the Bolts on home ice since one noticeable trait through Tampa Bay’s first six games is that they’ve looked slow on the ice, especially in the defensive zone. There are a couple of factors to that, number one being their inability to link play on their breakouts has stalled out a lot of their rushes up ice.

Second, and well, to be kind, their defense isn’t exactly built to be fleet of foot. Let’s take a quick look at the NHL Edge stats of the six defensemen that are likely to be on the ice for the Bolts tonight:

Okay, first off, we did not have Erik Cernak as having the second-fastest burst of speed this season. The big fella must have had an excellent tailwind for that one.

When you have four of your top-six defenders in the bottom-half of a league that is getting faster in every position, it’s not a great sign. The glaring issue for the Lightning is that when their blueliners get caught up in the offensive zone, they don’t have the foot speed to get back and defend breakaways.

It also appears in smaller, but still negative ways. It means that they have to exert a lot of energy just to stay ahead of the play in routine transition, or concede the neutral zone in order to get into their structure against faster opponents. They also struggle to carry the puck out quickly through the neutral zone when they do have the puck, which puts less pressure on the team defending them. That leads to more stretch passes to their forwards as they try and make up for that territory on the ice.

Perhaps that is why we see Charle-Edouard D’Astous recalled. He is by no means a Quinn Hughes-esque mobile defenseman, but he does play with pace and is able to carry the puck up the ice. It doesn’t look like he’s in the line-up for tonight’s game, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him in one of the back-to-back games this weekend.

One player who does appear to be getting the call tonight is Dominic James. The Lightning held an optional morning skate, but Coach Jon Cooper confirmed to reporters that the former Chicago draft pick will be making his NHL debut tonight. If we had to guess, he goes in on the wing on the fourth line with Jack Finley centering it.

However the lines are constructed, the Lightning need to play with pace and urgency from the (early) drop of the puck. We’ve seen what they are capable of at stretches, but those have come when they’re chasing the game in the third period. They need to show that not-quite-desperate play in the first period, second period, and third period to right the ship and start climbing back up the standings.

The “it’s early” mantra loses its effectiveness the wider the gap in points becomes, and right now the Lightning are already looking at a four-point gap between them and the Panthers, the team holding onto the third spot in the division.

With Chicago and Anaheim in town for the next two games, these are two wins that the Lightning should be favored to win, but just because the odds-makers like their chances doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed victory.

Potential Lines

Tampa Bay Lightning

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