The Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings meet Wednesday in NHL action at the Little Caesars Arena. The Tampa Bay Lightning have won 7 of their last 9 games. The Detroit Red Wings have lost 6 straight games.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are averaging 3.6 goals per game and are scoring on 27.1 percent of their power play opportunities. Steven Stamkos leads Tampa Bay with 16 goals, Nikita Kucherov has 35 assists and Brayden Point has 91 shots on goal. Defensively, the Tampa Bay Lightning are allowing 2.9 goals per game and are killing 80.4 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up 56 goals on 658 shots faced, and Brian Elliott has allowed 25 goals on 254 shots.
The Detroit Red Wings are averaging 2.9 goals per game and are scoring on 19.8 percent of their power play opportunities. Dominik Kubalik leads Detroit with 10 goals, Fillip Hronek has 18 assists and Dylan Larkin has 98 shots on goal. Defensively, the Detroit Red Wings are allowing 3.2 goals per game and are killing 76.4 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Ville Husso has given up 58 goals on 665 shots faced, and Alex Nedeljkovic has allowed 35 goals on 292 shots.
The Lightning are 4-1 in their last 5 road games and 19-7 in their last 26 overall. The Red Wings are 0-5 in their last 5 home games and 0-6 in their last 6 overall. The under is 3-1-2 in Lightning last 6 road games. The under is 7-2 in Red Wings last 9 overall. The Lightning are 11-3 in the last 14 meetings in Detroit and 39-14 in the last 53 meetings. The favorite is 40-16 in the last 56 meetings. The road team is 5-1 in the last 6 meetings.
The Detroit Red Wings have the rest advantage, and they're at home, so there's some value in the underdog role, but it's going to take more than that for me to get behind them here. The Tampa Bay Lightning have played their best hockey over the last 2 weeks, and we know they have no problem winning on the end of back to backs. The juice is reasonable. Give me the Lightning and the fair price.
