It’s that time again where the Lightning and Panthers face off in what has been deemed as “The Battle of Florida”. The race for a playoff spot in the Atlantic Division has remained tight and both teams would love to grab the top seed at the end of the regular season.
The Lightning have been on a heater as of late, coming off a 3-1 win in Washington and looking to extend their 8-game win streak after Monday night. Saturday marked the seventh of their last 8 games in which the Lightning have had help scoring from one of their bottom-six players. Defensively they’ve been stout, working as one complete unit, and outscoring their opponents 36-16 in their last 9 games.
“It’s a pretty confident group. A lot of it is not for probably the reasons people think of the Tampa Bay Lightning, you know, for scoring a bunch of goals. We're doing it with defense and that's been the key for us in this little stretch,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “Couldn’t be coming at a better time, as we're going down the stretch here and trying to solidify a playoff spot.”
The race for a playoff spot in the Atlantic Division is proving to be a competitive one with Toronto barely hanging on to the top spot. The Panthers are only one point out of first place and the Lightning are following closely behind just 3 points back.
As for Florida, they’ve won three straight games and eight of their last 10. On Saturday they made a trade ahead of the March 7th NHL Trade Deadline to acquire Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks. After the move was finalized, Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk was placed on LTIR due to an injury he acquired during the 4 Nations tournament.
Here’s a look at the lines from Saturday’s game against the Capitals where the Lightning went 11/7 for the third straight game:
Forwards
Jake Guentzel - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Zemgus Girgensons
Mitchell Chaffee - Nick Paul - Gage Goncalves
Mikey Eyssimont - Luke Glendening
Defensemen
Victor Hedman - JJ Moser
Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg - Darren Raddysh
Nick Perbix
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Should be a great matchup. Puck drop is at 7pm EST.