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The Calgary Flames are playing the third game of a five-game road trip tonight in Tampa Bay.
The Flames have to be pretty pleased with how the trip has started. They dominated the Vancouver Canucks from start to finish and, though they didn't win, picked up a much-needed point. The Flames followed that up with a solid performance in a thrilling win against a Predators team they're jockeying for playoff position with. They'll look to build on that, and extend their point streak to four games, tonight against the Lightning.
Tampa Bay has not lived up to expectations this season -- it is hard to when you play most of the season without your captain and best goal scorer -- but don't let that fool you. They are still a good hockey team and it's shown of late.
The Bolts have picked up at least a point in eight of their last 10 games. In that span, they've controlled 53% of the shot attempts and 54% of the scoring chances at 5v5. Their offense has taken it up a notch, too, as they've scored at least three goals in six of their last seven contests.
As a result of their current run, the Lightning are just four points out of a playoff spot and 14 of their remaining 23 games are at home. They're still very much in the race and I expect that to show in their play tonight.
Here are the expected line combinations for the Flames:
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Micheal Ferland
Kris Versteeg - Sam Bennett - Troy Brouwer
Lance Bouma - Matt Stajan - Alex Chiasson
Mark Giordano - Dougie Hamilton
T.J. Brodie - Deryk Engelland
Matt Bartkowski - Michael Stone
Brian Elliott
And the expected lines for the Lightning (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn - Brayden Point - Jonathan Drouin
Brian Boyle - Valtteri Filppula - Vladislav Namestnikov
Gabriel Dumont - Cedric Paquette - J.T. Brown
Victor Hedman - Jake Dotchin
Jason Garrison - Anton Stralman
Braydon Coburn - Andrej Sustr
Ben Bishop
A few notes:
1) The Flames and Lightning are both controlling more than 52% of the attempts and 53% of the chances over the last 10 games. This should be a fairly even, back-and-forth game between two sides playing some of their best hockey.
2) Nikita Kucherov is coming off a four-point night and has 15 shots on goal over his last two games. The Flames are going to have their hands full with him.
3) No Stamkos, no problem. The Bolts are still sandwiched between Pittsburgh and St. Louis in power play conversion rate and are one of the best teams in the league while up a man. If discipline continues to be an issue for the Flames this game probably won't end well.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7:30 eastern and can be seen on SNW and SUN.
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