Bolts By The Bay Mailbag: Which Team From Each Division Will Give The Tampa Bay Lightning The Biggest Challenge?

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Welcome to this week’s Bolts By The Bay Mailbag, the place where we take any questions you may have about the Tampa Bay Lightning and give you answers.

Have a question for next week’s BBTB Mailbag? There are many ways to reach us! The easiest way would be by filling out this Google form. You can also get us your questions by commenting on any of our articles or on our Facebook page. Tweeting is also an option. Send your question to either @BoltsByTheBay or my personal account@K_Barber9. With that, let’s get to this week’s question.

John asks: Which team from each division will give the bolts the hardest time? Why?

As most of you know, division realignment has made it so that each team will face the other 29 teams around the league at least twice during the regular season. This is mostly for non conference opponents who will play one game against the team from the opposing conference on home ice and once on the road.

The NHL did this so that fans can see players from teams like in Edmonton, a team we usually wouldn’t see, and vise versa. That way, Tampa Bay Lightning fans get to see Connor McDavid play at Amalie Arena while fans of the Edmonton Oilers get to watch Steven Stamkos light it up at Rexall place.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will go into the season with a target on it’s back as Eastern Conference Champions and have a tough schedule with back-to-back games against tough opponents on both nights. With the emergence of Andrei Vasilevskiy as the team’s backup goaltender, the team will fare much better than they did in back-to-back situations than when Evgeni Nabokov was between the pipes.

With that, lets take a look at which opponent from each division will give the Tampa Bay Lightning the most trouble during the 2015-16 NHL regular season.

Next: First, the Atlantic Division

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