After a much needed day off yesterday, the 34-15-7 Calgary Flames are back at it tonight against the 4th place 37-13-6 Tampa Bay Lightning.
Fans will remember their last meeting, a 4-1 rougher-than-expected Lightning win on the 6th of January at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. After a chippy start, things came to a boil when Noah Hanifin laid a hit on Boris Katchouk, Mathieu Joseph came to Katchouk’s aid and squared up with the Flames defenceman at the 10:08 mark of the first period.
Hanifin got the win in the bout, Joseph took an additional roughing penalty, but Corey Perry scored 20 seconds after the penalty concluded. One has to wonder if the Flames would have been scored on if Hanifin wasn’t serving five minutes in the box.
The fun didn’t end there. This happened in the late second period.
Richardson missed the shoulder and hit Joseph in the head with a bodycheck. Katchouk returned the first period favour by standing up for the Lightning forward. Unremarkable, obligatory grappling match and Richardson gets booted from the game.
The third period? Not much better.
You’re supposed to be reading about today’s game and not a game played months ago, so let’s just summarize the third as a very rough period including Pat Maroon getting the cake beaten out of him after jawing Gudbranson during a commercial break.
All of that is essentially a long form way of saying that tonight may get rough.
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Coleman-Backlund-Lewis Mangiapane-Ruzicka-Toffoli Lucic-Monahan-Dube
Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Burning the candle at both ends The line of Milan Lucic, Sean Monahan and Trevor Lewis had a rough night on Tuesday.
Monahan had multiple giveaways leading to goals against. He was 16.67% in the faceoff dot. He just seemed lost on the ice. The Flames were outchanced 2-9 in the 8:48 he was on the ice and the Capitals scored two goals in that time.
It’s hard to argue that it wasn’t his worst game of the season.
Lucic wasn’t far behind. He’s looked off for a couple weeks.
If that line is indeed playing tonight (confirmed at warmups) then the Flames will be rolling out a liability.
In the two team’s last meeting, Sean Monahan went 33% in the faceoff dot. He particularly got eaten alive by Brayden Point. The Tampa star won 3/4 draws against Sean.
One has to wonder if the mileage of each player on that unit and the intensity of the schedule are starting to get the better of them.
It’s starting to get pretty noticeable that the fanbase is getting restless regarding Monahan. One has to wonder if just shutting him down until he gets back to 100% wouldn’t benefit all parties involved. Sean has a contract year coming up and playing at 70% healthy is going to affect his career earnings in the long run.
That said, it’s respectable that he wants to play through it.
Doppelgà¤ngers The Flames and Lightning have been eerily similar in their results lately. The Lightning are 7-3-0 in their last ten. The Flames 7-2-1. More strange is the sequence of their last five games.
Given that the game of hockey is dictated by the invisible hand of momentum, it’s fair to say these two teams are carrying around the same amount into the match tonight.
Hell, they even both played four games in six days prior to their day off yesterday. Both had a back to back late last week. It may be casual neurosis, but the two have been uncannily similar in March.
“They have no weaknesses… An interesting line during a press availability today from a player intimately familiar with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That being recent UFA acquisition and Stanley Cup winner, Blake Coleman.
Disagreed, Blake.
Over the last 30 days, the Lightning PK has ran at a 75% clip.
Looking into an explanation: clearing rebounds and collapsing too early off the points seem to be an issue.
The issues were underlined in the Lightning’s most recent loss. Pierre Luc Dubois put away an uncleared rebound on the powerplay and Vasilevski broke his stick over his post.
On the other side of the coin, since acquiring Tyler Toffoli the Flames powerplay is scoring at an absurd 30%. An unsustainably high success rate.
It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots on that one.
If the game gets as rough as their last matchup— the Flames stand a good chance at winning this game on the powerplay.
Puck drop at around 7:08pm mst.
Trevor Neufeld
Follow me on Twitter @Trevor_Neufeld