Tampa Bay Lightning Preview: Odds and key matchups vs Buffalo Sabres

The Tampa Bay Lightning are looking to end their road trip with a victory, and the Bolts are in Buffalo to take on a Sabres squad that is looking for its first win.

Tampa is coming off a 5-2 loss to Ottawa, while Buffalo lost to the New York Islanders off a goal with under seven minutes to play.

Tampa Bay Lightning: The third time is the charm, right?

• When – 7:30 PM
• Where – KeyBank Center
• TV – ESPN
• Radio – 102.5 The Bone

As we chronicled, the biggest problem for the Tampa Bay Lightning on this road trip has been puck management. It is early in the season, and sloppy play will happen. But Tampa’s giveaways led directly to goals that not even Andrei Vasilevskiy would stop.

It is unclear as of this writing if Steven Stamkos will play. He missed the Ottawa game and was listed as “day-to-day.” With him and Tyler Motte out, Jon Cooper opted for a top line of Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, and Brandon Hagel.

That pairing got completely overrun by Ottawa and gave up 12 shots on the net while only generating five of their own.

The makeshift second line of Tanner Jeannot, Anthony Cirelli, and Michael Eyssimont had a much better night, scoring both two goals on the night and having a Corsi number of 62.96% (shot attempts for vs shot attempts against).

Who to watch on Buffalo

Buffalo has rolled their top three lines with fairly even playing time in their first two games. Their most notable line with the most star power is the group of Jeff Skinner, Tage Thompson, and Alex Tuch.

While Skinner has had 30+ goals each of the last two seasons, he has not lived up to the eight-year deal he signed in 2019 for $9 million per season. Thompson, meanwhile, put up 47 goals last season, while Tuch had 36 goals.

Along the blue line for the Sabres is the 2021 first-overall pick Owen Power, who just inked a seven-year deal with the club at the age of 20.

Vegas Says…

After years of futility, Buffalo is one of the trendy picks to unseat the powers that be in the Atlantic Division and make the next step this season. As a reminder, they finished just one point behind Florida in the standings last season.

So, with the heightened expectations combined with Tampa’s injuries, Vegas has this game as a pick em, with both teams listed at -110.

Also notable, Vegas gave the uptick to the over/under and set the line for this game on the higher side at 7 goals rather than the standard 6.5.