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Tampa Bay Lightning Hope To Extend Points Streak Against Columbus

By Tasha St. Pierre

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The Tampa Bay Lightning came back with all the fury of the god of thunder on Thursday night when the Lightning shut out the Buffalo Sabres 5-0 at the Amalie Arena. Unfortunately, the time for celebration has come to an end and they have a new challenge in front of them tonight.

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Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and the rest of the Lightning will open the doors to the Amalie Arena in order to face off with Scott Hartnell and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Much like the Buffalo Sabres that came before them, the Blue Jackets have had an issue putting a string of wins together this season. Before winning a home-and-home series against the Florida Panthers earlier in the week, the Blue Jackets dropped their last six games in a row.

The one thing we do not want to do is go into this game thinking that a win is a sure thing. Of course, as fans we always come into a game in that manner, but the players need to come into this game focused and ready to go.

On the other hand, the Blue Jackets seem to be going through the same ordeal that the Tampa Bay Lightning went through earlier in the season. At this point the Blue Jackets have six players on their injured reserve; two of which are alternate captains. This certainly cannot be helping their play at all.

More than likely, the Columbus Blue Jackets will be facing down Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop between the pipes. While this could always change after the morning skate, there is really no reason to sit a goaltender when he’s hot and not on the back half of a back-to-back.

So far this season, Bishop has a 16-3-2 record with a Goals Allowed Average of 2.20 and a Save Percentage of .919. Bishop is also fresh off of his first shutout of the season on Thursday evening. This means he will have that same mojo rolling into tonight’s encounter.

Judging by his performance lately, there is a good chance that the Lightning will be facing down Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky was the player between the pipes in both of the Blue Jackets last two wins.

This season, Bobrovsky has a 7-8-1 record in his 16 games this season. He has maintained a Goals Allowed Average of 2.88 and a Save Percentage of .914. Given the fact that he has won the last two encounters he’s started in, he certainly heads into tonight’s game on a high note as well.

Tonight is not going to be the first time these two teams have met on the ice this season. The Lightning and the Blue Jackets came together on November 8th at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus. The Lightning came out on top with a decisive 7-4 victory.

Since that time, the Bolts have only become stronger as a cohesive unit. There are two lines that have found an uncanny chemistry with one another and with the entire team being healthy once again we are truly a force to be reckoned with.

The keys to a victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight are fairly simple and pretty much the same as against the Sabres. The most important of all, the Lightning need to make sure they keep a handle on the overpassing.

Countless times this season they have made one pass to many and it resulted in a turnover in an inconvenient time or location; like right in front of the Lightning net.

The other is for the Bolts to minimize their time in the penalty box. Unfortunately, this seemed to be much easier said than done in the final period against the Buffalo Sabres where the two teams managed to earn themselves a total of 108 penalty minutes.

We don’t know about you, but we can’t tell if that’s a sign of a good hockey game or a game that was simply allowed to get out of control and somehow managed to morph into a boxing match. The good news is, at the end of the day the Bolts were able to come home with the win.

Hopefully, we will be able to say the same thing when the final buzzer sounds tonight at the Amalie Arena.

What do you think the score will be when the final buzzer sounds tonight? Which player do you think will have a breakout performance in tonight’s encounter? What do you think is the biggest key to a Lightning victory tonight? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. Are you ready to Be The Thunder?

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