The
Lightning will begin their season-long, 5-game road trip on Saturday night in
St. Louis when they take on the Blues. The Lightning are 16-24-5 with 3 ties
all time against the Blues, including a road record of 4-15-3.
LAST TIME
OUT
The Bolts
scored 2 power-play goals on Thursday night after matching a season-high 3
power-play goals on Tuesday night against Columbus. Tampa Bay has scored 8
power-play goals in their last 6 games.
The
Lightning were outshot by the Canucks 40-35 and moved to 10-4-1 when being
outshot by their opponent. Tampa Bay only outshot the Canucks in the second
period when they posted 11 shots to Vancouver’s 10.
Lightning
goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves on the 40 shots he faced to record
his 18th victory of the season. Vasilevskiy’s 12 wins on home ice rank tied for
the 2nd most in the NHL with Bruins netminder, Linus Ullmark.
STAMKOS
STEAMS AHEAD
Steven
Stamkos picked up his 29th assist of the season Thursday and 46th point with
the primary assist on Nikita Kucherov’s goal at 15:44 of the second frame.
Stamkos
recorded the 499th goal of his career with a one-time shot on a 5-on-3
power-play to make the score 5-2 at 5:30 of the third period.
The
power-play goal was Stamkos’ 9th of the season which leads all Lightning
skaters. His 21 power-play points this season rank 2nd among Tampa Bay skaters
trailing only Kucherov (27).
Stamkos has
pointed in 8 of his 10 career home games against the Canucks (7-8—15 pts.). Stamkos
has registered points in 3 consecutive games (1-4—5 pts.) and has posted a
multi-point performance in back-to-back contests (1-3—4 pts.).
Stamkos has
picked up points in 23 of his last 26 games (11-23—34 pts.).
FOR THE
RECORD
With the win
the Lightning improved to 26-13-1, including a record of 17-4-1 on home ice.
Tampa Bay’s 17 wins at home are the second most in the NHL trailing only the
Boston Bruins (19).
The Bolts
are 2 wins shy of tying their franchise record 11-game winning streak on home
ice set in the 2019-20 season. The Bolt’s 9-game home winning streak is the
longest active streak in the NHL.
Tampa Bay
sold out their 308th consecutive home game.
NOTABLE
Vasilevskiy
has won 7 of his last 8 starts against Vancouver, including 5 consecutive wins.
Mikhail Sergachev played in his 400th career NHL game on Thursday.
(Mike Bonts is hockey editor for the Florida Sports Wire and SportsDay)