This is it. The Tampa Bay Lightning will take to the ice this afternoon in Washington for what will be their 82nd and final game of the 2013-14 regular season. Having already clinched a playoff spot, the Bolts are now in great position to secure home ice advantage for round one. A victory over the Capitals would lock up second place in the Atlantic Division for the Bolts.
Unfortunately for Tampa, recent history between these two teams hasn’t been overly friendly to the guys from Florida. No longer Southeast Division rivals, the Caps and Bolts have only met twice this season. Washington has won both high-scoring contests. There was a 6-5 shootout victory in December and a 4-3 regulation victory in January.
It’s absolutely worth noting that both Tampa losses this year came without Steven Stamkos in the lineup. While Alexander Ovechkin was able to victimize the Lightning defense shift in and shift out, Stamkos was at home rehabbing his broken leg. That won’t be the case tonight, as Stamkos is in the lineup and ready to do some damage. He’s scored 25 goals through 36 games this season and added 15 assists. It’s pretty remarkable stuff.
The great news for the Lightning, as reported by Damian Cristodero of the Tampa Bay Times, is that many of the team’s fallen soldiers were healthy enough to travel to Washington.
Hedman, Salo, Filppula, Bishop, Palat all made the trip today to Washington, though no injury updates from team. Purcell (flu) stayed home.
— Damian Cristodero (@LightningTimes) April 12, 2014Valtteri Filppula (lower body), Ondrej Palat (upper body) out, while Victor Hedman (lower body) is a game time decision. #TBLightning
— Missy Zielinski (@Missy_Zielinski) April 13, 2014With all that said, the big question on the minds of many today has to do with goaltending. Will Anders Lindback start after shining in Philadelphia two games ago, or will Kristers Gudlevskis be given the opportunity to follow up on a great performance versus Columbus? Well, the answer is that Lindback will get the start in net. As good as Gudlevskis was in his first NHL start, the fact is that the team is far more likely to turn to Lindback in the first round of the playoffs should Ben Bishop still be on the shelf. Lindback’s two performances since Bishop went down with injury have been nothing short of brilliant.
That’s all I’ll say for now, as puck drop is just over an hour away. Hopefully the Lightning can go out there and grab that home ice advantage from the Montreal Canadiens. This team is on the cusp of a 100 point season. Considering that just less than one year ago the team’s brass stood on a stage and selected Jonathan Drouin with the third overall pick, it’s become a lot easier to believe in miracles.
I’ll be back with a full post-game recap in the afternoon. As always, thanks for reading.