After enjoying a multi-day break over the all-star weekend, the Tampa Bay Lightning will get back to work tonight as they are set to take on the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena. This is the third and final meeting between the former Southeast Division foes this year; Tampa is 2-0-0 in the previous matchups thanks to a pair of 2-1 victories.
If you’re the Bolts coming out of this break you’re feeling pretty good. Sitting atop the Eastern Conference, Tampa is on the road to a playoff berth. The key for the players now is to simply go out and do what they’ve been doing. Against a Carolina team that sits near the bottom of the standings, they’ll have a great opportunity to do just that.
Though they had the chance to rest up over the break, there are still injury concerns looming for Tampa tonight. Radko Gudas and Matt Carle remain out with long-term injuries, while Tyler Johnson’s status is a little bit up in the air. Johnson did, however, take part in this morning’s skate. The lines at the skate, per Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune, look like this:
Valtteri Filppula-Steven Stamkos-Ryan Callahan Ondrej Palat-Tyler Johnson-Nikita Kucherov Alex Killorn-Cedric Paquette-Jonathan Drouin Brenden Morrow-Brian Boyle-Brett Connolly
Victor Hedman-Andrej Sustr Mark Barberio-Anton Stralman Jason Garrison-Nikita Nesterov
Ben Bishop Evgeni Nabokov
If Johnson is indeed good to go, expect to see that lineup take to the ice tonight.
To counter the expected Bishop start, Carolina head coach Bill Peters will turn to Anton Khudobin. Khudobin has been one of only a few bright spots for the Hurricanes this year. His stats are very good when you consider that he’s playing on a team that is getting close to Connor McDavid sweepstakes territory. The Lightning will have their hands full with him tonight, especially if they find themselves a bit rusty after the break.
That’s all for now. I don’t have a ton of time this afternoon, so I have to keep this short. I’ll be back with a comprehensive game review this evening.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.