Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Benchmark International Arena
TV/Stream/Radio: The Spot, MNMT, ESPN+, 102.5 The Bone
Odds: Lightning -150
Know the Opponents: Russian Machine Never Breaks
They say that you never get a second chance at a first impression. They, being Will Rogers, an American humorist who was born all the way back in 1879. The Tampa Bay Lightning are hoping that Mr. Rogers is just a little bit off in his assessment of human nature. Because, if they can’t convince fans that their first outing of the 2026-27 season was a woeful misconstruing of the talents of the team, then it’s going to be a very, very long season.
The good news is that the Lightning didn’t have to linger too long in the aftermath of the 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers. They aren’t stuck on the road, and they’re going to be able to bask in the pomp and adoration that comes with a home opener. They will walk the blue carpet with fans cheering them. The energy will be high in the building as introductions are made, and hopefully, everything that happened on Thursday night will be forgotten.
It won’t be an easy task. The Washington Capitals might be playing their second game in as many nights as they opened up their season with a pretty nice win over the defending Stanley Cup champions on Friday. There is a lot of preseason love for the Capitals as they pulled off one of the biggest re-toolings of a line-up in recent memory. Not only did they add veterans Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch, but also are incorporating youngsters like the Protas brothers, Ryan Leonard, and Cole Hutson. It should be a pretty nice blend of talent.
Coach Jon Cooper was as critical as he gets of his team’s performance against the Rangers as he called out their “pushback” in the loss. It definitely looked like one team still had their preseason vibes going while the other was fully in regular season mode. Brandon Hagel uttered the first cliche of the season as he acknowledged that the team “had better in us”. If they can show that against a strong Capitals team, it will go a long way to extinguishing some of the trepidation fans felt after the first game.
While the power play was the glaring example of the Lightning’s struggle, their inability to garner offense after the first period was also concerning. One of the hallmarks of last year’s team was that they tended to get better as the game went on. Yes, they had some struggles to open games (they allowed the first goal 44 times) but also found their way back to win 19 of those games. That’s not too shabby.
The fact that they only generated six shots on goal in the third period, despite a copious amount of time with the extra skater (or two) seemed to chafe on Coach Cooper the most. When the Bolts are on the game, the third periods are their best whether they are leading or trailing. A return to that style of play will belay a lot of concern about their future prospects.
Another one of Will Rogers’ maxims is “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today”. Which sounds a lot like Coach Cooper’s “The great thing about today is that it’s not yesterday.” The Lightning have basked in that mentality during their run of success. They are pretty good at not allowing one loss to bleed into another. Take the loss, learn from it, and move on to the next game.
Will there be any major line changes for the Bolts? Maybe? It wouldn’t be surprising to see either Max Crozier or Emil Lilleberg rotate in with Charle-Edouard D’Astous cycling out. Coach Cooper stuck with his lines for most of the first two periods, and then the third period was all discombobulated due to the excess special teams use (they only played 6:41 at 5v5 against the Rangers in the final frame).
Expect the Lightning to come out with a much better effort tonight as they try and jump on a Capitals team that could be a little tired after their Friday night game.
(Lines updated following morning skate)
Worth noting that the power play units stayed the same with Charle-Edouard D’Astous on the second unit. So this might not be the final line-up tonight.
Forwards:
| Gage Goncalves | Brayden Point | Nikita Kucherov |
| Brandon Hagel | Anthony Cirelli | Jake Guentzel |
| Ilya Mikheyev | Zemgus Girgensons | Pontus Holmberg |
| Jeff Viel | Jansen Harkins | Conor Geekie |
Defense:
| J.J. Moser | John Carlson |
| Ryan McDonagh | Erik Cernak |
| Victor Hedman | Emil Lilleberg |
Goaltenders:
| Andrei Vasilevskiy |
| Dennis Hildeby |
Washington Capitals
Forwards:
| Alex Tuch | Pierre-Luc Dubois | Tom Wilson |
| Alex Ovechkin | Dylan Strome | Ryan Leonard |
| Aliaksei Protas | Ilya Protas | Jordan Kyrou |
| Boone Jenner | Justin Sourdif | Anthony Beauvillier |
Defense:
| Jakob Chychrun | Matt Roy |
| Cole Hutson | Vincent Desharnais |
| Martin Fehervary | Timothy Liljegren |
Goaltenders:
| Charlie Lindgren |
| Logan Thompson |
