TAMPA, Fla – Beginning with Tuesday evening’s visit from Los Angeles, the Lightning play their next four games at Amalie Arena over a 10-day stretch.
It is sure to be a welcome homestand for a team that, concluding with Saturday night’s 7-3 loss at Boston, played 14 games in exactly one month. Nine of them were on the road with the Bolts touching down in all four of the league’s time zones.
The homestand represents an opportunity to compile much-needed points. The Lightning, who reached the halfway point of their schedule sporting a 19-17-5 mark for 43 points, are in the middle of a logjam when it comes to playoff position.
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They are one point out of the second and final wild card spot with seven teams, the two occupying the wild card spots and the next five in line, within four points of one another. Each of the other six teams, though, has at least one game in hand on Tampa Bay and three of them have three games in hand.
The Kings will be followed at Amalie by New Jersey on Thursday night, Anaheim on Saturday evening and, following four off days, Minnesota next Thursday.
The Kings, who lost 4-3 at Washington on Sunday, are third in the Pacific Division with 46 points in 36 games. While mediocre (7-7-5) at home, the loss in D.C. dropped them to a still eye-opening 13-3-1 on the road for a league-best .764 points percentage. Goalie Cam Talbot is second in the NHL with a 2.17 goals against average and his .923 save percentage is good for third.
The personnel coach Jon Cooper utilizes on defense will likely remain a question up until the pregame skate. He went with seven defensemen in Boston, including 21-year-old Jack Thompson and 22-year-old Emil Lilleberg, who made their NHL debuts.
Recent shuffling on the blue line is the result of injuries to Mikhail Sergachev, Erik Cernak and Haydn Fleury. Sergachev has missed eight games after taking a shot off his foot and remains day to day. Cernak (upper body) and Fleury (hand) were injured in the New Year’s Eve game at Amalie against the Canadiens. The former is day to day and the latter is on long-term injury reserve.
Read: Banged-Up Bolts Need Healthy 60-Minute Efforts
For the most part, Thompson (11:39, 2 hits, even) and Lilleberg (11:48, 1 block, minus-2) acquitted themselves well in Boston.
“They are young kids playing their first NHL game and you want to make sure that they are confident, and they made confident plays,” said Cooper, following the game. “Good for them because they are kids we eventually want to see in our lineup on a regular basis. They have to get their feet wet at some point and it was a tough building to get their feet wet.”
The Lightning are 27th among 32 NHL teams with a goals-against average of 3.49, which includes 10 empty-netters.
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