Tampa Bay Lightning at Pittsburgh Penguins
Tampa Bay is another team that has really started to find its groove lately, winning five straight games and scoring 22 goals in the process. The power play has been absolutely lights out in their last three games, going 5-for-15 in those contests. Now, it should be said that the teams they’ve beaten are Florida, New Jersey, Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa – the only playoff team in there is Toronto and they’re, um, not playing well right now – but nonetheless it’s an impressive streak. One guy that has been great for this team lately is rookie centre Tyler Johnson, as the kid has nine points (five goals) in his last nine games.
Pittsburgh’s defense and goaltending remains suspect as ever, but the offense has seemed to have found its groove: In the team’s last three games, the Penguins have scored 12 goals (though the power play has gone just 1-for-12). It should be noted that after a bit of line shuffling for a while, Jussi Jokinen has seemed to solidify himself on the second line again with Evgeni Malkin. Also, after some experimenting with Olli Maatta, it seems like Matt Niskanen has again solidified himself on the top power play unit.
Tampa Bay lost 3-0 to Pittsburgh back at the end of November but that was in the post-Stamkos-injury phase of the season. The first game of the year between the two teams was a 5-4 Pittsburgh win back in October and I expect that to be a more likely result today. I would steer, far, far clear of both goalies and focus on either side to help round out some 50/50 lineups.
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Top RW Value |
Top LW Value |
Top C Value |
Top D Value |
Bargain Bin |
|
(PIT) $12,268 |
(TBL) $6494 |
Tyler Johnson (TBL) $9467 |
Matt Niskanen (PIT) $8674 |
(TBL) $5165 |
