Tampa BAE Lightning Game 22: Bumble Gum, Duct Tape, & Brotherly Love

Most of the Tampa Bay Lightning are back on the ice inside Benchmark International Arena tonight at 7 p.m. to take on the Philadelphia Flyers.

Tonight’s game is the first regular season meeting between the two organizations and the Lightning are going to have their hands full with this one. The Flyers aren’t such a joke anymore. They’re currently in a playoff spot, they’re capable of busting out lots of goals, and they’re probably going to compete for a playoff spot until the end of the year.

Offensively, they have been rejuvenated with the addition of Trevor Zegras. In their last ten games, they’ve scored close to 30 goals. It’s not always consistent, but there’s been four of those games where they have scored 4+ goals. With a Lightning defense made up of a bunch AHLers, the Bolts will need to be careful. Get behind too early and it could end up being a VERY long night.

Defensively, the Flyers are doing alright. They let in 3+ goals four times in their last ten games. Not terrible. The real question is: will the Bolts depth keep scoring? Better hope so. Point is out. Probably for a bit of time. Kucherov is playing, but he didn’t finish last night. Is he 100% healthy? Most likely not. The depth guys are going to need to keep finding the back of the net to keep the Lightning in these games.

In net, I would assume we see Dan Vladar. He is sporting a 2.42 GAA & a .902 SV% this year. Good news here is that Vladar is 2-2-0 in his 4 games against the Bolts with a GAA of 4.2 and a .853 SV%. Granted those games were all with Calgary, who is really struggling as a team, but still you love seeing that stat line.

Expect the Bolts to go 11-7 tonight with the call up of Max Groshev on defense to replace Erik Cernak who is going to miss “significant time” according to Coach Cooper. No Hedman, No McDonagh, No Cernak, No Point, and probably a 50% Kucherov. Yeesh.

It’s Hockey Fights Cancer Night. See you at 7 p.m. Go Bolts!