The Lightning are looking to get two divisional points at home against Detroit.
The Lightning will complete the second of their two home games this week against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night at Amalie Arena. This is going to be a good one.
Detroit has been on a bit of a hot streak as of late, winning 8 of their last 10 games. The Lightning have had a jam-packed month of January with sixteen games on the schedule. There's no doubt they'd like to see their divisional record improve and they'll have a chance to do it tonight.
Currently Tampa Bay sits in third place in the Atlantic Division. Boston, Ottawa, Montreal and Detroit aren’t far behind.
Special teams could play a big part in the direction that this game goes in. The Red Wings have the second best power play percentage in the league at 29.5%, however they are ranked 31st on the penalty kill.
The Lightning have seen their fair share of success on the power play this season at 26.2% and have made adjustments to their power play units as recently as this week.
“Our record is not where we'd like it in our division,” Jon Cooper said in his pregame interview. “So I think that'll be a motivation for the guys. You start looking around, it’s now in the second half of the season. I know it's early in the second half, but you're looking around at the teams now... who wants to take your spot? This is one of them. So we’ve just got to play that complete game, which we haven't fully seen.”
Cooper confirmed defenseman Erik Cernak would be out, after leaving in the first period on Thursday against Anaheim. Max Crozier was recalled fr Syracuse yesterday and will fill in for him.
Here's a look at the lines from Saturday's morning skate:
Forwards
Jake Guentzel - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Nick Paul
Zemgus Girgensons - Conor Geekie - Mitchell Chaffee
Mikey Eyssimont - Luke Glendening - Cam Atkinson
Defensemen
Victor Hedman - Darren Raddysh
Ryan McDonagh - Max Crozier
Emil Lilleberg - Nick Perbix
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy