NHL Game of the Week: Bruins vs. Lightning
On Thursday Jan. 26th the Boston Bruins are taking a trip down south to play the Tampa Bay Lightning in Amalie Arena for an Atlantic Division matchup.
The Bruins are currently in first place in the NHL and first in the Atlantic with a record of 38-5-4. The black and gold are currently on a six game winning streak, with their most recent victory being 4-2 over the Montreal Canadiens on the road.
David Pastrnak stayed hot on the scoresheet scoring his 37th goal of the season and tallying three assists on the night. He now has 69 points on the year in 47 games.
Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark has taken most of the time between the posts for Boston and has recorded a career best 1.82 goals against average and .983 save percentage. Ullmark has a 25-2-1 record this season with two shutouts.
On the home side, the Tampa Bay Lightning have been having a successful season themselves, being seventh in the NHL and third in the Atlantic Division with a record of 30-15-1. The Lightning are coming off of a home victory against the Minnesota Wild where they won 4-2.
Steven Stamkos scored his 24th goal of the year in the third period and now has 505 goals in his career after scoring his 500th goal last week against the Vancouver Canucks. Stamkos now has 55 points in 46 games this season.
Forward Nikita Kucherov is the Lightning’s current top scorer with 68 points, having 19 goals and 49 assists. Kucherov has been better at home this year with 41 of his points coming inside of Amalie Arena.
Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has a .917 save percentage and a 2.54 goals against average this season. Vasilevsky has a record of 21-12-1 and has performed better at home, being 13-4-1 and 8-8-0 on the road.
For the fans watching this game anything can happen. This game will either be high scoring or fans will be treated to a goaltender duel. Both teams have extremely hot offenses with a lot of firepower and Ullmark and Vasilevskiy are two of the best netminders this year.
The last time these two teams met was earlier in the season on Nov. 29, where the Bruins were victorious by a score of 3-1. If the Lightning want to get one back on their Atlantic Division rivals, slow down Boston’s progression and end their winning streak, the Bolts are going to have to muster up their offense to shoot everything at the net and to take advantage of every rebound.
Both teams are going to want to stay out of the penalty box as the Bruins and Lightning have the number two and three power plays this year.
Tampa Bay is currently the favorite to win this game by a very slim margin due to them being the home team, and this game is projected to finish around the six goal margin.
Christopher Machado is a junior studying broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email, cvm6238@psu.edu
