Vegas Golden Knights at Tampa Bay Lightning: GAME #45
Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time
Location: Amalie Arena
Broadcast/Streaming: ESPN+, BSSUN, ATTSN-RM
Opponent SBNation Site: Knights On Ice
The Tampa Bay Lightning are preparing for their last game of January. So far this month they have a pretty strong record of 8-3-0, including winning six of the last seven games. As of today, the Bolts are second in the Atlantic Division, just two points behind the Florida Panthers, who are leading both the division and the league.
Nikita Kucherov will miss his second consecutive game due to being placed into COVID-19 protocol earlier this week, but it’s expected that the Russian forward should be back in the line-up for the game against the San Jose Sharks next week. Both Erik Cernak and Zach Bogosian are still recovering from their injuries, meaning that Fredrik Claesson will likely remain in the line-up. The Bolts still have defenseman Darren Raddysh and forward Cole Koepke on their taxi squad in case some of the regular players won’t be available for tonight’s game.
Meanwhile the Lightning’s next opponent, the Vegas Golden Knights, are ending their four-game road trip tonight. That road trip has been very challenging and tough for the Golden Knights as they’ve lost two out of three games on the road so far, including the loss to the Florida Panthers 1-4 on Thursday night.
While the Bolts, despite all their injuries, managed to lose only three games in the current month, the Golden Knights have the opposite record in January, winning just three games this month. That slump could be partly blamed on the team’s health issues as the Golden Knight’s have just gotten back Max Pacioretty, who recovered from his wrist injury, and are still missing one of their key defencemen, Alex Martinez, who hasn’t played since November.
The Golden Knights, however, are still comfortably leading the Pacific Division and still have some leverage in the form of a fewer amount of games played over the second place Anaheim Ducks.
It will be the second and the last game this season between those teams. In the first game the Lightning took advantage of the Golden Knights despite having a slow start and came back after a 1-3 deficit.
Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines
Forwards
Ondrej Palat – Brayden Point – Anthony Cirelli
Alex Killorn – Steven Stamkos – Mathieu Joseph
Pat Maroon – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Corey Perry
Boris Katchouk – Ross Colton – Taylor Raddysh
Defense
Victor Hedman – Cal Foote
Ryan McDonagh – Mikhail Sergachev
Fredrik Claesson – Jan Rutta
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Brian Elliott
Vegas Golden Knights Lines
Forwards
Max Pacioretty – Chandler Stephenson – Mark Stone
Jonathan Marchessault – William Karlsson – Reilly Smith
Mattias Janmark – Nicolas Roy – Evgenii Dadonov
Will Carrier – Nolan Patrick – Keegan Kolesar
Defense
Nicolas Hague – Alex Pietrangelo
Shea Theodore – Zach Whitecloud
Brayden Mcnabb – Dylan Coghlan
Goaltender
Robin Lehner
Laurent Brossoit
