The game tonight is one of those understatedly significant ones that occasionally surface during a season. Despite their patchy performance throughout the season, the Lightning are in a playoff position, while the Senators are in last place in their division and in 28th place overall. Therefore, on paper, the Lightning should be the favorites to win this game.
Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs, who fell short of the Senators 5-3 a few weeks ago, and they will prove that they are anything but a pushover. That game, you remember it? The Ridley Greig slapshot game last week is what stirred up controversy throughout the league:
They are obviously a lottery team, as evidenced by their defeats of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Anaheim Ducks, two of the four clubs that are ranked lower than them. To their credit, they performed fairly well against Chicago, but the Blackhawks prevailed 3-2 thanks to 40 saves from goalie Petr Mrazek.
The Lightning will have to play with their gut after being completely outclassed by the Florida Panthers on Saturday night in the arena. After the game, Coach Cooper said as follows:
They simply outplayed us, prevailed in the special team war, and won their puck battles. They also prevailed in the TV timeout, if there was one to be won. Although they had a few goals against us, they had luck with the puck for 59 minutes and 36 seconds.
In addition, he was excited about the Senators game.
“Points are necessary for us to continue pushing. Nothing came our way [on Saturday night]. The result is unimportant. It’s how we handle Monday, and there’s an exciting challenge there. Check out what we have here.
The Lightning last suffered a defeat similar to this in a game against the Dallas Stars at the start of December. They bounced back from the 8-1 loss with victories over the Stars (4-1) and the Penguins (3-1). After an uneventful voyage to the West Coast, they began winning a lot of games a few weeks later, kicking off their season.
To put it plainly, tonight’s speedier team has to be the Lightning. They are among the best teams in the league when they force plays and set the tone for the game. However, when they take a backseat, everything go wrong. The Brady Tkachuk/Claude Giroux/Tim Stutzle line went completely crazy in the first meeting between these two teams back in October, losing 5-2 in Ottawa despite having 13 shots, 12 scoring opportunities, 6 high-danger chances, and 2 goals.
The good news for the Lightning is that Josh Norris has returned and is now centering Tkachuck and Drake Batherson. Old friend Mathieu Joseph is filling in for Tkachuk with Stutzle and Giroux. Shane Pinto has returned to Ottawa after a suspension. The Senators are a little deeper across their lines because they are starting to play their intended lineup for the first time almost the entire season, which might present Coach Cooper with some intriguing matchup problems.
The Lightning intends to respond by attempting some of their own deep scoring. They seem to be reverting to their previous pattern of providing the majority of their offensive production to the top two lines and the power play. Even while that works great night to night, they will eventually need some points from the bottom six. They need to start seeing goals from players like Tyler Motte and Conor Sheary (who I thought performed quite well against Colorado), but injuries to players on the third and fourth lines haven’t helped.
Tonight, Tampa Bay needs to make Ottawa make mistakes rather than the other way around. A side creates more opportunities and appears to start getting the puck to bounce their way when they press play in that manner. The Lightning will be optimistic going into the remaining twenty or more games of the regular season after putting forth a strong effort. If they test negative, it might be time to start worrying seriously.
