7:07 pm
March 13

Predators @ Lightning

Who will WIN this matchup?

Nashville Predators (11-15-1)

@ Tampa Bay Lightning (18-5-2)

 

Starting Goalies:

Pekka Rinne (NSH): Unconfirmed

Andrei Vasilevskiy (TB): Confirmed

 

Current odds:

Nashville Predators: (+265)

Tampa Bay Lightning: (-330)

 

• After a successful road trip that ended a little bit rocky, the Tampa Bay Lightning are ready to return to the Sunshine State for some home cooking. The Lightning earned nine points in their six-game road trip (4-1-1) through Dallas, Chicago and Detroit, but they slipped some by splitting their last four games.

• Trailing first-place Carolina by one point in the Central Division and tied with Florida with 38 points entering Friday’s games, the Lightning have a chance to bolster their position when they host the Nashville Predators on Saturday night in the first of two games. Tampa Bay is 4-0-0 against the Predators this season — dominating the scoreboard by a 19-7 margin — and holds a 9-1-0 home mark.

• The Predators have played poorly through a six-game skid (1-4-1) and capped it with a terrible showing Thursday night against the Carolina Hurricanes, who easily claimed the 5- 1 victory. Coach John Hynes’ team trailed 5-0 in the third period before Nick Cousins netted his third goal with 4:32 left. That prevented Nashville from being shut out for the third time in what has become a difficult season.

• With No. 1 goalie Juuse Saros still on the mend and having missed five games, Hynes said the schedule shakes out for him to lean solely on 38-year-old Pekka Rinne for the foreseeable future. When the Hurricanes worked their way to a five-goal advantage, Hynes used the remaining time to rest Rinne by replacing him with 27-year-old fellow Finnish backstop Kasimir Kaskisuo, who stopped all three shots he faced in 15:22 of ice time.

7/10
Confidence
StreakSmarter Pick
Tampa Bay Lightning
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