Tampa Bay Lightning will appear to also draw points with the Atlantic divisional leader Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday when the team meets in Tampa, FLA.
The flash (45-26-6, 96 points) has lost all three previous meetings this season with Maple Leafs (47-26-4, 98 points), which has scored five goals in each victory.
“It’s tight,” said Tampa Bays Brayden Point. “It’s Hemis and that means a lot in a seven-game series. We are just working on trying to get our game right for the playoffs and it will be a big test against Toronto.”
However, the flash will come from a 5-1 road victory against the New York Rangers on Monday, while Maple Leafs fell 3-1 to Florida Panthers on Tuesday evening.
Tampa Bay participated in his competition on a two-game lost line and fell 2-1 in Ottawa on Thursday and 3-2 in a shootout in Buffalo on Saturday. Point (two goals, assists), former Hart Trophy receiver Nikita Kucherov (goals, two assists) and Jake Guentzel (three assists) registered each three-point performances in the victory over Rangers.
Point darkened the 40-target plateau for the third straight season and tied him to the franchise high with Steven Stamkos and the fourth time in his nine-year career.
Point and Guentzel each have netted 16 Power-play goals to match the end of Edmonton Oilers Center Leon Draisaitl for the league high.
“It’s nice to get some (power-play) goals,” Point said after the club went 3-for-4 on Power Play. “They haven’t gone in for us from late in the last six or seven matches.”
In the previous nine races, the lightning strike was 4-for-24 with the manner.
Against the Stanley Cup champion Panthers for the second time in a week on Tuesday evening, Toronto lost in the first of Back-to-Back matches in Sunshine State.
Panthers, who was 0-4-1 in the last five matches, received 17 saves from goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky to keep Maple Leafs in the fourth.
Netminder Joseph Woll was strong in the network for the leaves, stopped 34 out of 36 shots and gave their teammates a decent opportunity to share the season series.
John Tavares noted his 37th goal on a nasty snipe over Bobrovsky who called from the post and in.
During the regular season, Toronto is 1-6-0 against the Panthers and the Ottawa senators, the two clubs that train Craig Berube’s squad can probably meet in the first round of the post season.
“(Florida) wanted it more than us,” Berube said. “It starts in the faceoff circle. They were 70 percent tonight. For me it comes to competitiveness and dig in more. They seemed like a more desperate team than us.”
Even without Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and defender Aaron Ekblad appropriate, Berube in Panthers saw the opportunity for another tough playoffs.
“You will have to come in there and win fighting against this team, that’s safe,” he added. “They are on you. They are cramped (defensively).”
-Field level media
