Tampa Bay Lightning (23-9-5) vs. Buffalo Sabres (10-18-6)
January 11, 2022 7:00 pm EDT
The Line: Buffalo Sabres +188 / Tampa Bay Lightning -225; Over/Under: -6.5
(Get latest betting odds)
The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Buffalo Sabres meet in NHL action from the KeyBank Arena on Tuesday night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to rebound from a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Boston Bruins in their last game. Steven Stamkos leads the Lightning in scoring with 41 points including a team-high 16 goals along with 25 assists while Victor Hedman also has 36 points with a team-high 29 assists as well this season. Alex Killorn has 31 points with 11 goals and 20 assists while the aforementioned Hedman has a team-high +10 plus/minus rating as well for the Bolts this season. Andrei Vaslievskiy has seen the bulk of the workload between the pipes for Tampa Bay this season, posting a record of 19-6-3 with a 2.23 GAA and a .923 save percentage on the year.
The Buffalo Sabres will try to snap a five-game losing streak after a 3-2 loss to San Jose in their last matchup. Tage Thompson leads Buffalo with 23 points with a team-high 12 goals and Rasmus Dahlin has 22 points and Kyle Okposo has 21 points with Dahlin logging 6 goals and 16 assists while Okposo has 7 goals and 14 assists. Jeff Skinner has 19 points of his own split between 11 goals and 8 assists while Victor Olofsson has 20 points split between 5 goals and 15 helpers.. Dustin Tokarski’s gone 4-5-3 with a 3.28 GAA and a .903 save percentage in goal for Buffalo while Ukko-Pekka Luokkonen is 2-4-2 with a 2.61 GAA and a .922 save percentage and Aaron Dell is 0-5 with a 4.52 GAA and an .872 save percentage.
Tampa Bay is 119-58 in their last 177 games overall and 40-18 in their last 58 games as a favorite while the over is 9-4 in their last 13 road games. Buffalo is 19-55 in their last 74 games overall and 1-10 in their last 11 home games while the under is 7-2-1 in their last 10 games overall.
I get the allure of heavy plus money with a home dog, but the issue here is that the Sabres have had issues winning anywhere as of late and I just don’t see the value with them in spots like these. Tampa Bay has been rock solid more often than not as of late, and I just don’t want to be on the other side of the Bolts, especially with the Sabres on the other side. Give me the Lightning -1.5 here.
