The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Calgary Flames meet in NHL action from the Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to bounce back from a 7-4 loss to the Winnipeg Jets last time out. Steven Stamkos leads the Lightning in scoring with 63 points including a team-high 27 goals along with 36 assists while Victor Hedman also has 57 points with a team-high 43 assists as well this season. Alex Killorn has 46 points with 17 goals and 29 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 30-10-4 with a 2.39 GAA and a .918 save percentage on the year.
The Calgary Flames will look to bounce back from a 5-4 loss at the hands of the Washington Capitals last time out. Johnny Gaudreau leads the Flames in scoring with 74 points including a team-high 51 assists while Elias Lindholm has 60 points with 31 assists and 29 goals with Gaudreau posting a +43 plus/minus rating while Lindholm has a +44 rating. Matthew Tkachuk has 27 goals and 38 assists for his 65 points while Andrew Mangiapane has 43 points and 29 goals of his own. Jacob Markstrom’s gone 26-11-6 with a 2.14 GAA and a .926 save percentage up to this point in the season in goal for Calgary.
Tampa Bay is 4-1 in their last 5 road games and 43-13 in their last 56 games following a loss by 3 or more goals while the over is 9-1 in their last 10 games as a road favorite. Calgary is 8-1 in their last 9 games playing on 1 day’s rest and 5-0 in their last 5 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the over is 5-0-1 in their last 6 games against the Eastern Conference.
I get the case to be made either way here, but you’re getting a heavy discount on the Lightning compared to the prices we normally see Tampa Bay at. I know Calgary’s been on fire (no pun intended) and we’ve made a fair bit blindly backing the Flames over the last month, but this is strictly a value play on the Bolts. Give me Tampa Bay here.