Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Tampa Bay Lightning (16-9-1, 33 points) and Columbus Blue Jackets (10-14-3, 23 points) go head-to-head live from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus for the first of three meetings this season. The game can be live streamed here. Tampa Bay fans can hear all of the action on WFLA 970 while Columbus fans can do the same on Sports Radio 97.1 The Fan
Tampa Bay will look to avoid dropping a fifth straight road game while Columbus will hope for some offense as the team ranks 20th in the league by averaging just 2.4 goals per game.
The Lightning are coming off of a 3-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins Friday and were shut out for the fourth time this season.
"[Pittsburgh has] some big-time players. Buried that first one and put us behind ... I was not displeased with the way we played," coach Jon Cooper said per NHL.com. "I didn't think it was a 3-0 hockey game to be honest."
The Blue Jackets lost 3-1 to the Boston Bruins on Saturday while only mustering 14 shots on goal and they haven't won consecutive games in over a month.
"Not enough [shots] and not enough quality ones either. We've got to find a way to generate more. Probably the two things we talked about the most [was] more shots, get 10 a period, and stay disciplined, no penalties, and it didn't seem like we executed either one," forward RJ Umberger told NHL.com after the loss."
Columbus is led in scoring by Ryan Johansen (10-9-19), James Wisniewski (2-16-18) and Brandon Dubinsky (5-10-15), who hopes to play tonight after being activated from the injured reserve and practicing Monday.
Martin St. Louis (10-14-24) has paved the way for Tampa Bay while Valtteri Filppula (9-10-19) has also picked up the scoring slack in the absence of Steven Stamkos (14-9-23), who broke his tibia last month.
In between the pipes for Tampa Bay, Ben Bishop is 14-4-1 with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage. For Columbus, Sergei Bobrovsky is 9-11-2 with a 2.81 GAA and a .906 save percentage.
Both teams look to bounce back from losses when the Lighting and the Blue Jackets faceoff tonight in Columbus.
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