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Tampa Bay Lightning Look To Finish 2014 With A Win Over The Buffalo Sabres

By Tasha St. Pierre

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The Tampa Bay Lightning battle back to play forty minutes of the best hockey we have seen from the Bolts in quite some time as they battled back after a rough first period to ultimately defeated Dion Phaneuf and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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Now, the Tampa Bay Lightning need to keep this momentum rolling as the Lightning charge into the First Niagara Center in New York to take on Matt Moulson and the Buffalo Sabres in the hopes of bringing home an additional two points in the final game of 2014 and ring in 2015 in style.

This is the third time these two teams will meet over the course of this season. The difference between this encounter and the other two is that the Lightning find themselves in a much more favorable position this time around.

You see, the first time these two teams met, the Lightning was on the back half of one of their many back-to-back series on the road. The next encounter was just two days later, this time at the Amalie Arena. The Lightning and the Sabres split these games down the middle.

In tomorrow night’s encounter, the Tampa Bay Lightning comes in with a slight advantage. As we mentioned before, the Lightning are coming into this matchup off of a win. Unfortunately for the Sabres, the same cannot be said for them.

The Buffalo Sabres just endured a pretty difficult 5-2 loss at the hands of the Ottawa Senators, which concluded their current four-game road trip.

It is never a good feeling to be heading back into your house coming off of a loss like this one; however, sometimes it is a situation like this one that sparks the intensity inside of a team and motivates them to play that much harder.

The Buffalo Sabres seemed to find their groove at the beginning of the month when they were able to win four games in a row; defeating the Los Angeles Kings, Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers, and the Ottawa Senators. Unfortunately, they just can’t seem to keep their mojo rolling in the long term.

The Sabres have talented players on their team like centers Tyler Ennis and Zemgus Girgensons. Ennis has scored 8 goals and 15 assists in 37 games for a total of 23 points. This puts him in first place on the team in that category. Girgensons has scored 11 goals and 9 assists for 20 points, putting him just behind Ennis.

On the other side of the ice, the Sabres will have to deal with players like Steven Stamkos, who recently snapped the trying scoring slump that he has been in as of late. Steven Stamkos currently leads the Lightning with 20 goals and 18 assists for a total of 38 points.

Right on his heels is the red hot Tyler Johnson. Johnson has brought home 13 goals and 24 assists for a total of 37 points in 37 games with a plus-23 rating. On a side note, Tyler Johnson’s plus-23 rating not only puts him in first place on the Bolts in this category, but the entire National Hockey League as well.

Given some sort of freak accident, which we are currently knocking on wood in hopes of preventing, it was initially believed that we would see Ben Bishop in net against the Sabres; however, it would seem that he is dealing with some nagging issues that have sparked the team to recall goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy from the Syracuse Crunch.

As you can tell by taking a look at the Sabres stat sheet, there is not much to brag about this season. All but five players on the team have a negative plus/minus rating; three of five players have played less than ten games this season. That says a lot about the team’s ability to put their master plan together.

This begs the question, is it truly the players at fault here or is it something much more sinister at play here. Is it the Head Coach? Is it the General Manager? Is it the person writing the checks in the back office? There simply has to be an answer that can be found.

Of course, all of this is another story for another day.

The point of the matter is that the score sheet can be deceiving. We learned that earlier this season when the Sabres defeated us 2-1 in the shootout. If the Lightning head into this encounter with the assumption of a guaranteed win, there is a possibility that they may get their bell rung.

What the Lightning need to do is keep their foot on the gas and play the way that they did in the last forty minutes of the Maple Leafs game on Monday. The Bolts need to be taking shots at the net, plugging for the rebound, and keeping the offensive pressure on as much as possible.

Oh, and also maintain the one thing that I have been harping on for a good portion of the season; stay out of the Penalty Box; especially for penalties that could be prevented.

If they can combine these things into one sixty minute all-around game, the Sabres won’t know what hit them. We don’t know about you, but that would certainly be a fitting end to 2014 for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

What does 2015 have in store for the Bolts? We’ll have to wait and find out. The one thing we do know for sure is that the tone will be set by what happens in tonight’s encounter.

What do you think the score will be when the final buzzer sounds? Which Tampa Bay Lightning player do you think will stand out against the Sabres? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The puck drops at an earlier than usual 6:00 p.m. Are you ready to ring in the year with yet another Tampa Bay Lightning victory? I know we are!

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