Lightning Defense Will Be Tested Once Again
Tampa, FL – The Tampa Bay Lightning defense has been under assault through the first two games of the season, a trend that Jon Cooper and company would like to reverse. The Lightning’s defense has allowed six goals to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings in the seasons first two games and Andrei Vasilevskiy has allowed an uncharacteristic nine goals in those games.
On Thursday night, The Tampa Bay Lightning (1-1-0) finished a furious third-period comeback against the Detroit Red Wings. They look to carry that momentum over and get off to a fast start against the Washington Capitals (1-0-0) on Saturday night at Capital One Arena in D.C.
The back-to-back six goal games marked the first time that the Lightning have allowed six or more goals in back-to-back regular season games since January 3, 2017 (6-4 loss to Winnipeg Jets) and January 5, 2017 (6-1 loss to the Nashville Predators).
The Capitals are coming off a 5-1 win over the New York Rangers and are 6-2-2 their last 10 games against the Bolts. The Capitals were led on offense by the familiar trio of Alex Ovechkin who had two goals and two assist, T.J. Oshie had a goal and an assist, and Evgeny Kuznetsov had three assists.
Lightning A Confident Group:
Tampa Bay’s defense will have their hands full in D.C. on Saturday night, but the Bolts are also a team that is resilient and seems to respond well to adversity. After the battle in Detroit Jon Cooper noted the championship pedigree in the locker room. Victor Hedman commented that there aren’t too many teams in the league that can do what the Bolts did in coming back from three down with around 7-minutes to go.
The Lightning will need that championship pedigree in D.C. tonight and every night of the season as each and every opponent is going to use the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions as a measuring stick and in doing so will bring their A-game.
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