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G6 New Jersey Devils vs Tampa Bay Lightning: Five things to watch

October 17, 2017, 10:23 AM ET [104 Comments]
Todd Cordell
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After a couple days off, the New Jersey Devils return to action tonight when they play host to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

While the Lightning are off to an excellent 5-1-0 start, the Devils are actually getting them in a pretty good spot.

Not only are the Devils fresh and facing a team in the latter half of a road back-to-back, but the Lightning are not playing as well as their record suggests.

The Lightning have been outshot -- in some cases by significant margins -- in all but one of their games and surprisingly rank 27th in expected goals for at 5v5, 25th in expected goals against, and 30th in expected goal differential (only Buffalo ranks lower).

The Lightning have a lot of star power so it's likely only a matter of time before they figure things out, and start really carrying play at 5v5, but they're not there yet. The Devils need to take advantage of that tonight.

Here are the projected lineups:

New Jersey

Taylor Hall - Nico Hischier - Drew Stafford
Marcus Johansson - Adam Henrique - Kyle Palmieri
Jesper Bratt - Pavel Zacha - Jimmy Hayes
Miles Wood - Blake Coleman - Brian Gibbons

Andy Greene - Damon Severson
John Moore - Steve Santini
Will Butcher - Ben Lovejoy

Cory Schneider

Tampa Bay (via DailyFaceoff.com)

Vladislav Namestnikov - Steven Stamkos - Nikita Kucherov
Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Yanni Gourde
Alex Killorn - Tyler Johnson - Slater Koekkoek
Chris Kunitz - Cedric Paquette - Ryan Callahan

Victor Hedman - Jake Dotchin
Mikhail Sergachev - Anton Stralman
Braydon Coburn - Dan Girardi

Five things to watch:

1) The Bolts allow more scoring chances per 60 minutes with Girardi on the ice than any other player. If John Hynes can get the Hall-Hischier duo out against him with any regularity, they'll take advantage.

2) Speaking of Hischier, he ranks 27th in the NHL in 5v5 scoring chances/60 and ahead of notables like Evgeni Malkin and Steven Stamkos. If he continues to get good looks, it's only a matter of time before he pots his first goal.

3) Hynes has been using the Coleman line to match up against opposing team's best players -- at home vs Washington they played more against the Ovechkin-Kuznetsov duo than any other line -- and, to this point, it has worked out OK. The Devils will really be testing their luck if they stick Coleman's line on the Lightning's top unit, though. Stamkos, Kucherov, and Namestnikov rank 1, 2, and 3 on the team in 5v5 chances and are as dynamic of a trio as you'll see.

4) In a hair under 50 minutes of 5v5 ice this season, Zacha has just two shots on goal. That is unacceptable, especially given who he has played with and the caliber of shot he has. He really needs to start shooting the puck and generating more offense because a lot is expected of him. I think it's safe to say he has been the biggest disappointment thus far.

5) Only two teams have taken more 5v5 penalties than the Lightning and you can bet they'll be even more susceptible to penalties tonight in the latter half of a back-to-back, especially if the Devils attack and really use their speed.

Puck drop is just after 7:30 p.m. Eastern and can be seen on NBCSN.

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