Ducks at Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning were forced to win a big game without two of their superstars last time out and may have to do it again when they host the struggling Anaheim Ducks on Saturday night. Nikita Kucherov missed the contest (upper body) while captain Steven Stamkos (team-best 20 points) aggravated a lower-body injury in the first period of Thursday’s 4-2 victory at Chicago and both are questionable for Saturday.
“You can’t replace those guys, you just can’t. They’re world-class players,” Tampa Bay center Brayden Point told reporters after scoring the winning goal Thursday. “It takes a lot of effort, and I thought we competed, we played hard, we played simple. Early we turned pucks over, and I thought we got better as the game went on.” The Lightning will hope for the same type of effort against the Ducks, who have lost seven of their last eight overall (1-4-3) but own points in five of the last six meetings (3-1-2) - including wins in their last two trips to Tampa Bay. Anaheim suffered its most discouraging loss during the slump Thursday at Florida when it scored the first four goals and let it slip away before suffering a 5-4 defeat in overtime. “We have to play a certain way for absolutely 60 minutes for us to have a chance to win,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins told reporters. “And we were doing it until a couple hiccups there in the second period. We can’t do it. There’s some elite teams in this league. If they have a couple of guys that don’t show up, they can still win. We’re not an elite team yet.”
TV: 7 p.m. ET, Prime Ticket (Anaheim), FS Sun (Tampa Bay)
ABOUT THE DUCKS (10-10-3): Left wing Jakob Silfverberg had an assist Thursday and leads the team with 18 points - two more than captain Ryan Getzlaf and fellow forward Rickard Rakell, who has two goals and three assists in the past four games. Right wing Ondrej Kase had a goal and an assist against Florida and registered two assists versus Detroit on Nov. 12, but has been kept off the scoresheet in seven of his past nine games. Defenseman Hampus Lindholm (nine assists, plus-3 rating, 15 games) practiced Friday after missing the last six contests with a lower-body injury and could return soon.
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (10-7-2): Defenseman Victor Hedman had an assist in Chicago to extend his point streak to six games, in which he has two goals and seven assists, and is tied with Kucherov for second on the team with 18 points. Center Anthony Cirelli has scored in three consecutive contests while linemate Alex Killorn had an assist Thursday to extend his point streak to six games (three goals, six assists). Reigning Vezina Trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy (7-6-0, .904 save percentage) will likely be back between the pipes after losing his last two outings against Winnipeg (4-3) and St. Louis (3-1).
OVERTIME
1. Anaheim G John Gibson (7-10-1, .908 SP) has allowed at least four goals in four of his last five starts.
2. Tampa Bay LW Ondrej Palat needs one goal for 100 in his career and one assist to reach 200.
3. Ducks rookie LW Max Jones has three points in the last four games after managing two in his first 15 contests this season.