Lightning Look To Clinch The Atlantic As They Face The Playoff Hopeful Arizona Coyotes

By: Luke Finlay

After setting the franchise record for wins with 55 against the Capitals on Saturday night, the Lightning look to add to their historic season by clinching 1^st in the Eastern Conference and the Atlantic Division while also clinching the Presidents Trophy. The Lightning take on the Arizona Coyotes at 7:00 tonight.

Tampa’s Overview

The Lightning are coming off a huge morale-boosting win against the former Stanley Cup Champions, The Washington Capitals. The final score of that game was 6-3 with Alex Killorn netting his first career hat trick. Captain Steven Stamkos will look to lead the Lightning to victory over an Arizona Coyotes team who have won 8 of their last 10 games. Arizona is riding hot right now and are currently 1 point over The Minnesota Wild for the second wild-card spot in the west. The Coyotes will look to widen the gap tonight between Minnesota by securing a huge 2 points over the top team in the league. The Lightning need to stay sharp.

Tampa Bay Lines:

Offense

Palat – Stamkos – Miller

Johnson – Point – Kucherov

Killorn – Cirelli – Joseph

Gourde – Paquette – Erne

Defense

Hedman – Sergachev

McDonagh – Cernak

Coburn – Rutta

Goaltending  

Andrei Vasilevksiy will start in net tonight, looking to register his 35^th win tonight to tie with Marc-Andre Fleury for most wins in the league.

 

Arizona’s Overview

Like I mentioned earlier, the Coyotes are only ahead of the Wild for the second wild-card spot by one single point tonight. They will look to go into this game playing a sharp 60 minutes. Both teams have something to fight for tonight to help secure their place in the playoffs. As we all know by now, the Lightning have already clinched their playoff spot but will look to clinch 1^st in the Atlantic and 1^st in the conference tonight. No doubt in my mind this will be an entertaining game to watch tonight.

Arizona Lines

Offense

Keller – Dvorak – Panik

Hinostroza – Richardson – Grabner

Galchenyuk – Cousins – Garland

Crouse – Kempe – Archibald

Defense

Ekman-Larsson – Hjalmarsson

Demers – Goligoski

Chychrun – Oesterle

Goaltending

Kuemper will be in net tonight.

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