Tampa Bay Lightning at Ottawa Senators
Tampa started off their road trip with an undeserved 3-2 loss in Toronto on Tuesday night and that gives the Lightning just six wins in their last 12 games. What they’ve done to this point with Steven Stamkos is admirable but they need their top goal scorer back. The good news is he’s travelling with the team on this road trip; the bad news is it’s not certain if he’ll play before the Olympic break. Either way, I would think Tampa has a little bit of extra motivation with their captain travelling with them so I expect a similar performance tonight as they gave on Tuesday.
Ottawa has managed to climb all the way to the playoff conversation but have started to stagnate again; if it weren’t for the loser points then Ottawa would be a lot further down the list as they’ve won just two of their last six games but have points in four of them to bring them to “.500”. One thing that has happened is they’ve managed to balance out the scoring lines so it’s not all on Kyle Turris or Bobby Ryan anymore; there are three good scoring lines there now (though the Spezza line is probably borderline).
Tampa Bay already has two wins against Ottawa this year though neither game was in our nation’s capital city yet. Both games were pretty close so I expect this to be another close contest tonight. Don’t underestimate the motivation of the Lightning to play well for Ben Bishop, though, as he was traded away from Ottawa last year for Cory Conacher. That doesn’t mean they’ll win, but it should keep this game close. I won’t be taking either goalie but will be picking from the respective power plays.
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Top RW Value |
Top LW Value |
Top C Value |
Top D Value |
Bargain Bin |
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Nikita Kucherov $7023 |
Clarke MacArthur $10,699 |
Kyle Turris (OTT) |
(OTT) $6503 |
Nate Thompson |
