Tampa Bay Lightning vs Anaheim Ducks 4/14/22 NHL Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Anaheim Ducks and the Tampa Bay Lightning meet in NHL action from Amalie Arena on Thursday night.

The Anaheim Ducks will look to rebound from back-to-back losses after a 3-2 OT loss to Florida last time out. Troy Terry leads the Ducks in scoring with 59 points including a team-high 33 goals while Trevor Zegras has 55 points with 20 goals and a team-high 35 assists. Cam Fowler has 38 points with 30 assists on the year. John Gibson’s seen the bulk of the work in goal for Anaheim and is 17-24-11 with a 3.16 GAA and a .905 save percentage this season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to rebound from a 1-0 loss to the Dallas Stars in their last game. Steven Stamkos leads the Lightning in scoring with 80 points including a team-high 32 goals along with 48 assists while Victor Hedman also has 68 points with a team-high 49 assists as well this season. Brayden Point has 55 points with 27 goals and 28 assists and Alex Killorn has 52 points with 21 goals and 31 assists 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 35-17-5 with a 2.43 GAA and a .918 save percentage on the year.

Anaheim is 16-35 in their last 51 games overall and 2-8 in their last 10 road games while the over is 3-1-1 in their last 5 games as an underdog. Tampa Bay is 1-5 in their last 6 games overall and 39-18 in their last 57 games as a favorite while the under is 4-0-1 in their last 5 Thursday games.

I get the allure of backing the Lightning here as the Ducks stink, but something’s not right with the Lightning, almost like they’re just coasting into the postseason. I think this is a spot where Anaheim struggles to score, if they do at all, and Tampa Bay just does enough to get by and get the win instead of trying to get style points. I’ll side with the under in what I think ends up as a 3-1 win or 4-1 win for the Bolts.