Lightning at Canadiens
The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to post victories while showing weaknesses and hope for a better 60-minute performance Saturday night when they visit the Montreal Canadiens for an Atlantic Division battle. The Lightning have been outshot 73-43 in the first two legs of a three-game road trip, but came away with a 4-2 win at Washington on Tuesday and survived a rally to post a 4-3 triumph at Ottawa on Thursday.
“We played scared out there,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman told reporters after recording a goal and a plus-3 rating Thursday. “Not the recipe for success. We’ve got to look in the mirror.” The Lightning have won three of four and lead the Atlantic Division by three points over Boston, which has three games in hand, and look to avenge a 2-1 shootout loss at Montreal on Jan. 4 when they registered 45 shots and allowed 38. The Canadiens snapped a six-game losing streak (0-4-2) with a 3-1 victory over the depleted New York Rangers on Thursday and are closer to the bottom of the Eastern Conference than a playoff position. “You look around the room, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to put the smiles on our faces,” Montreal forward Brendan Gallagher told reporters. “There have been games where obviously we didn’t deserve to win. There have been a couple where we fought hard and just didn’t get the result. So, it’s nice for this group to have a win.”
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Sun (Tampa Bay), CITY, TVA (Montreal)
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (41-17-3): Center Brayden Point was picked in the middle of the third round in 2014 and leads all second-year NHL players with 53 points this season, including seven during his current six-game streak. Right wing Nikita Kucherov set up a pair of tallies Thursday to extend his point streak to eight games (five goals, nine assists) and push his league-leading total to 80 points. Captain Steven Stamkos (69 points) notched his 45th assist in the win over Ottawa and needs one to equal his career high of 46 in 2010-11.
ABOUT THE CANADIENS (23-29-8): Center Phillip Danault scored one of the goals Thursday in his second game back from missing more than a month with a concussion, but All-Star goalie Carey Price sat out with the same ailment against New York and is out indefinitely. Gallagher boasts 12 of his team-leading 36 points in the last 13 games while captain Max Pacioretty and fellow forward Alex Galchenyuk are suffering through goal droughts of 11 and 12 contests, respectively. Defenseman Jeff Petry has scored in back-to-back games to set a career high with 29 points.
OVERTIME
1. Montreal D Noah Juulsen, a 2015 first-round pick, was a plus-2 with two shots in 17:14 of ice time during his NHL debut Thursday.
2. Tampa Bay G Andrei Vasilevskiy (NHL-best 35 wins), who was rested Thursday, made at least 35 saves in six of his last eight victories.
3.The Canadiens came into Friday tied for sixth in the league in shots per game (34.0), but 28th in scoring (2.53).