Tampa Bay Lightning (1-3) vs. Florida Panthers (3-1)
October 21, 2022 7:30 pm EDT
The Line: Florida Panthers -111 / Tampa Bay Lightning -111; Over/Under: +6.5
(Get latest betting odds)
The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers meet in NHL action from FLA Live Arena on Friday night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to rebound from a 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers last time out, falling to 1-3 on the year as a result. Steven Stamkos has a team-high 7 points and 6 goals while Nikita Kucherov has a team-high 5 assists. Victor Hedman and Vladislav Namestnikov each have 3 assists as well for the Bolts so far this season. Andrei Vasilevskiy is 1-2 with a 2.73 GAA and a .912 save percentage while Brian Elliott is 0-1 with a 5.05 GAA and an .886 save percentage so far between the pipes for Tampa Bay.
The Florida Panthers will look to improve on their 4-3 win over the Flyers to climb to 3-1 on the year as a result. Matthew Tkachuk leads the Panthers with 6 points including team-highs of 2 goals and 4 assists while Colin White, Aleksander Barkov, Gustav Forsling and Sam Bennett all have 4 points, with White logging a pair of goals and Barkov chipping in 4 assists while Bennett and Forsling each have a goal and 3 assists. Carter Verhaeghe also has a pair of goals as well this season. Sergei Bobrovsky’s gone 2-1 with a 2.75 GAA and a .920 save percentage while Spencer Knight is 1-0 with a 3.00 GAA and an .889 save percentage so far this season in goal for Florida.
Tampa Bay is 73-26 in their last 99 division games and 2-5 in their last 7 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 15-6 in their last 21 games overall. Florida is 47-20 in their last 67 overall and 46-18 in their last 64 games following a win while the over is 33-11-7 in their last 51 games following a win.
I get why one would look at the lightning here as they’ve had a lot of the recent success against the Panthers. However, I don’t think the Panthers have forgotten that the Lightning swept them in last year’s playoffs, and while some pieces have changed, the sting still remains for a lot of those guys. The Lightning haven’t gotten off to the strongest of starts and I think the Panthers could add to that by getting a bit of revenge here. Give me the Panthers.
