The Tampa Bay Lighting (19-16-4) take on the Nashville Predators (16-14-7) at the Amalie Arena on Thursday night. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET.
The two teams will be playing for the second and final time this season. The Predators defeated the Lightning 3-1 on November 21 in Nashville. Tyler Johnson scored the only goal for Tampa Bay in that game.
Lightning Outlook
The Bolts are playing the final game of their longest homestand this season. Tampa has experienced a decent amount of success at home recently going 2-1-1 during this string of games at the Amalie Arena.
The Lightning saw their three-game point streak come to an end Tuesday night against the Winnipeg Jets where they were beaten rather handily 6-4. The team is very much in the thick of the playoff race with more than half the season to go and would love to but together a string of victories to move up the standings.
Injuries continue to affect Tampa Bay but they team is starting to see the return of some their key players. Ryan Callahan rejoined the Bolts on Tuesday night after missing 15 games with a lower-body injury. It appears that Cedric Paquette could be following Callahan’s footsteps and could very well make his return on Thursday night. He has been sidelined with a lower-body injury since mid-December.
Staying healthy might be out of the team’s control but other improvements can be made by the Lightning to ensure a successful outing against the Predators. The Bolts were far too careless discipline wise and gave up too many penalties against the Jets. The team sent a player to the penalty box four times in the first period alone. Tampa also needs to put together a stronger two-way effort. They were the victims of too many mistakes at their own end and appeared to only focus on the offensive part of the game. It will never matter how many goals they score if they can’t prevent the other team from recording more.
Predators Outlook
Nashville, similar to Tampa Bay, is another team not living up to the preseason expectation bestowed upon them. They too are on the outside of the playoff picture sitting in sixth place in the Central Division. The Predators have experienced far less success away from the Bridgestone Arena. The team’s road record is currently 6-9-2.
The Predators will be without star defenseman P.K. Subban who is sidelined with an upper-body injury. Subban scored twice in the Predators’ last game against the Lightning in November.
Comparisons
The Tampa Bay Lightning and Nashville Predators matchup pretty evenly in most aspects of the game. The Bolts have a slight advantage on offensive averaging 2.85 goals per game compared to the Predators 2.76. Nashville has proven to be the better defensive team to this point allowing 2.68 goals per game compared to Tampa’s 2.79.
When it comes to special teams, the Lightning have had one of the league’s better power plays (ranked third) but have one of the league’s worst teams on the penalty kill (ranked 23rd). On the other hand, the Predators are ranked in the middle of the league when it comes to both the power play (11th) and penalty kill (14th).
Thursday night’s game should prove to be a highly contested matchup that has the potential to go right down to the wire.