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The Tampa Bay Lightning (14-2-2) get back into action tonight when they host the Dallas Stars (9-8-1) for their first meeting of the season.

Now, we could spend time dissecting this matchup, but why bother? We all know what the big storyline for tonight's game is.

Ben Bishop, the greatest goaltender in Lightning history, makes his return to Tampa Bay. This time wearing the green and white sweater of the Stars. It will be his 15th start for Dallas, looking to improve on his 7-5-0 record, .908 save percentage, and 2.68 goals-against average.

Not only will tonight mark the return of a goaltender that played such a key role in Tampa Bay's 2014-15 and 2015-16 playoff runs, it will also be a true teacher versus student matchup.

The Bolts current netminder, Andrei Vasilevskiy, absorbed a lot of knowledge about the craft of goaltending from watching Bishop. It is very safe to say that the now 23-year-old goaltender was mentored by the former Lightning star.

These days it appears as though the student, Vasilevskiy, has the upper hand. In his first full season as the Lightning's number-one netminder, he has already obtained 13 wins in just 15 games. In addition, he has a 2.32 goals-against average, a .930 save percentage, and one shutout.

Vasilevskiy is making it very clear that the Bolts made the right move deciding to move on from Bishop and count on him to lead Tampa Bay. The goaltender battle alone will make tonight's game a very intriguing contest to witness.


Lightning Projected Lineup

Namestnikov-Stamkos-Kucherov
Palat-Point-Gourde
Killorn-Johnson-Dumont
Kunitz-Brown-Callahan

Hedman-Dotchin
Sergachev-Stralman
Coburn-Girardi
Koekkoek-Sustr

Andrei Vasilevskiy

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