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After a successful three-game road trip in which they earned four of a possible six points, the Tampa Bay Lightning return to the friendly confines of Amalie Arena on Thursday night to host the Dallas Stars.
In other words, make sure the red lights are working behind each netminder.
The Stars, who come into tonight’s game with a 2-1-0 record on the year, put an absolutely ridiculous 52 shots on net in their last game, a 4-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers, and Dallas coach Lindy Ruff wants to see more of that from his veteran forward group on Thursday night, too.
Among the Stars’ leaders on Tuesday was Jason Spezza, who scored the sixth hat trick of his NHL career with a three-goal on eight-shot night, while forward Patrick Sharp put seven targets on net and Tyler Seguin finished the night with a team-high 10 shots on goal. But the Stars know that those gaudy shot figures won’t be the case tonight against a Tampa squad that’s allowing under 27 shots per game.
“We're not going to get as much ice, we won't get as much time to make plays,… Ruff admitted about tonight’s game. “But still [Benn-Seguin-Sharp] are going to have to be our best line.…
On the Tampa bench, there’s no doubt that the club’s top line of Jonathan Drouin, Ryan Callahan, and center and captain Steven Stamkos has been their best line. Drouin has become the natural pass-first playmaking that the line has coveted since the departure of Marty St. Louis, while Callahan is finding serious space and separation all over the ice for prime offensive opportunities.
That said, the Bolts are still waiting for the offensive results to come for the ‘Triplets Line’ of Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, and center Tyler Johnson to show up, as the trio have combined for just two goals (Kucherov and Palat each have one while Johnson has been held without a goal).
With a matchup against a Dallas defense that’s not particularly stifling, Johnson and his wingers should have yet another chance of breaking through with a big night, especially on home ice.
The Bolts took last year’s season series with Dallas 2-0-0, and have won five of the last six head-to-heads with the Stars dating back to the start of the 2010-11 season.
The Stars give the nod to Kari Lehtonen for his second-straight start. Stopping 26-of-28 in a winning effort against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday in his season debut, the 31-year-old brings a boatload of head-to-head experience with the Bolts to the Dallas crease. Familiar with the Lightning through his time with the Atlanta Thrashers in the Southeast Division (man, rest in peace on both accounts), Lehtonen enters play with 12 wins a .924 save percentage in 25 career games against Tampa Bay.
Like they have all season long, Tampa Bay will counter with Ben Bishop. With three wins and a .922 save percentage in four games this season, Bishop looks 100% recovered from offseason groin surgery, and has shown no signs of slowing down as head coach Jon Cooper’s workhorse in the blue. And the 6-foot-7 Bishop starting almost all of, if not all of, the Lightning’s contests until Andrei Vasilevskiy (blood clots) makes his return later this month and the club sends Kevin Poulin down to the American Hockey League seems like a very real possibility for Cooper at this point. In two career games against the Stars, Bishop has one win and an .899 save percentage (seven goals on 69 shots against).
Stats of Note
- Lightning captain Steven Stamkos has five goals and eight points in seven career games vs. Dallas.
- Jonathan Drouin has points in three of four games this season.
- Tampa Bay’s penalty-kill has allowed four goals on their last six opportunities.
- Tyler Seguin has four goals and 11 points in 14 career games against the Bolts.
- Dallas forward Patrick Sharp is still looking for his first point of the season.
Other news and notes
Lightning coach Jon Cooper expects Cedric Paquette (foot) to make his season debut tonight. The 22-year-old Paquette scored 12 goals and 19 points in 64 games for the Bolts last season, and finished the year third among Tampa forwards in hits (127) and second in blocked shots (58). Paquette’s return will certainly help a Lightning penalty-kill that’s struggled mightily a week in.
Defenseman Andrej Sustr sat as a healthy scratch on Tuesday night in favor of Nikita Nesterov, so that would be the only other lineup switch to watch for in tonight’s tilt, I’d say.
The Stars remain without forward Patrick Eaves (lower-body).
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.