Back home and rested after a grueling Western Conference road trip, the Tampa Bay Lightning will take to the ice at Amalie Arena tonight for a dance with the Arizona Coyotes. This is the first of two meetings this season between the Lightning (5-3-1) and the Coyotes (3-3-1).
Despite the fact that the Bolts were able to pick up six of a possible ten points on their trip out West, it would be disingenuous to suggest that they played well. They squeaked by Vancouver in what was a fairly even contest. They were thoroughly outplayed in Calgary (!) and Winnipeg (!), but somehow managed to eke out wins. They were trounced in Edmonton, and beaten as a result. And, finally, they were embarrassed in Minnesota. Somehow it all added up to six additional points in the standings.
The moral of the story on that trip is that the team needs to be better. There’s no doubt that injuries played a role in the team’s troubles in the other conference, but they don’t offer a full explanation for the lackluster play.
In the good news department, it sounds like both Alex Killorn and J.T. Brown are ready to go after missing some time with ailments. They were worked into the morning skate lines this morning, and Jon Cooper indicated that there’s a good chance both will be in the lineup.
Per Bryan Burns of NHL.com, here are the lines from today’s morning skate:
Valtteri Filppula-Steven Stamkos-Alex Killorn Ondrej Palat-Tyler Johnson-Nikita Kucherov Vladislav Namestnikov-Jonathan Drouin-Cedric Paquette Brenden Morrow-Brian Boyle-J.T. Brown
Matt Carle-Anton Stralman Jason Garrison-Radko Gudas Eric Brewer-Andrej Sustr Mark Barberio
Ben Bishop Evgeni Nabokov
It also sounds like Ryan Callahan is getting much closer, as his status has changed from week-to-week to day-to-day. Burns quoted Cooper as saying that he would be disappointed if Callahan didn’t play this week.
The bottom line here is that the injury bug is slowly vacating the building. That excuse won’t fly for much longer.
The Coyotes, for their part, are a relatively healthy bunch. Only Martin Hanzal and David Moss are listed as being injured, meaning that the Bolts will have to worry about a number of talented Arizona players. That includes Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, two of the most gifted defenders in the game.
Tonight could be an emotional night for Bolts fans. One of the franchise’s greatest players of all time makes his return to Amalie Arena after a storied career with the team. Sam Gagner will be in the Coyotes lineup tonight, so don’t be surprised if there are tears in the stands when he takes to the ice for that first shift. It will be an emotional night for all of us, as Gagner certainly made his mark with the Lightning franchise.
While they Coyotes have been more than competitive over the last handful of years, they are struggling right now. Weak goaltending from Mike Smith has helped to sink them to the bottom of the Pacific Division. Devan Dubnyk, who sports a 2.31 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage, is outplaying him. What does this mean for the Bolts? It means that this is a winnable game. They just have to go out and get the job done.
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.