Bolts aim for a repeat performance vs. Nashville

The Tampa Bay Lightning are set to conclude their two-game season series against the Nashville Predators tonight at 7 p.m. at AMALIE Arena. The two teams last met in the NHL Stadium Series when they battled outdoors at Nissan Stadium in Nashville in front of 68,619 fans.

It was the first-ever outdoor game for the Lightning, who walked away with a 3-2 win in front of a crowd that had plenty of blue and white scattered throughout the stadium. Nashville opened the scoring at the 8:20 mark of the first period, but Tampa Bay responded early in the second frame with Brayden Point scoring a power-play goal off a pass from Nikita Kucherov.
Kucherov added a power-play goal of his own 5:20 later with a perfectly placed wrist shot to give the Bolts a 2-1 lead. Tampa Bay kept the goals coming at the 11:31 mark of the third period when Cal Foote had everyone thinking shot, but instead he dished the puck to Steven Stamkos, who fired a one-timer past Juuse Saros.
Nashville added a power-play goal with 7:31 remaining to make it a one-goal game, but the Lightning closed things out and captured their first win in an outdoor game on their first try.
"Absolutely incredible. Just such a cool atmosphere," Point told the NHL Network right after the game. "The crowd was rocking for both sides. There was a lot of noise for both teams. Want to thank all the Tampa fans that came out. We had a great showing. The boys really appreciated it."

While tonight's contest may not be played in front of over 68,000 fans, you can bet that it will be packed to the brim at AMALIE Arena. Since March of 2015, the Lightning have sold out 273 straight home games, the NHL's longest active sellout streak (2020-21 season excluded due to social distancing protocols).
Nashville may be in the Western Conference, but these two teams have a lot of familiarity with each other after facing off eight times during the 2020-21 season as part of the reconfigured Central Division. The Lightning fared well against the Predators that season, finishing 6-2-0 with a 3-1-0 mark at AMALIE Arena.
After a dominant 8-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, the Bolts will hope to carry some of that positive momentum into tonight's matchup and into the postseason.
"I thought we finally had some emotion to kind of elevate our game," said Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy when asked about Thursday's win. "I felt like the last two weeks, we were trying to just survive those games, but in the end I thought we had good energy, positive energy, and we played pretty well.
"It's just one game. It can't be one and done, especially moving towards the playoffs. We have to bring the same amount of positive energy and positive emotion to our game, same as last game, and we'll go from there."
The Lightning will hope for another strong performance from Kucherov tonight, who really looks like he's starting to get his game dialed in ahead of the playoffs. In Thursday's win over Toronto, Kucherov became the fastest player in Tampa Bay franchise history to record 600 career points after hitting the mark in 557 games. He has goals in four straight games and nine of his last 10. In 15 career games against the Predators, Kucherov has scored six goals and added six assists for 12 points.
After being acquired in a trade from the Chicago Blackhawks this season, Bolts forward Brandon Hagel was asked about any similarities he sees between Kucherov and another star forward he played with in Patrick Kane.
"It's fun to watch," Hagel explained on Saturday morning. "I could sit back and watch those guys all day. The things they do out there and the way they get better each and every day is just crazy. They want nothing but the best and they're competitive guys.
"[There's] the creativity and the little bumps, the little plays that not many guys see. I feel like they think the game a little bit ahead of a lot of other guys and they're skilled, smart players. There's a reason why Kaner's going to be a Hall of Famer and Kucherov as well. Just the way they skate, the way they move - everything's very similar. I could see that they've probably watched a little film on each other."
After missing Thursday's contest against the Leafs, Brayden Point will return to the lineup for Tampa Bay on Saturday night. Point has also performed well against Nashville throughout his career, skating in 16 games against the Predators and recording four goals and 10 assists for 14 points.
One player the Lightning will have to be prepared for is Nashville defenseman Roman Josi, who is having a historic season on the Predators blue line. With 89 points (20G, 69A) on the season, Josi currently leads all NHL defensemen and ranks 15th amongst all skaters in scoring.
Tampa Bay has a first-class defender of their own in Victor Hedman, who has been impressed with the season Josi is putting together down in Nashville. Hedman was asked for his thoughts on who should win the Norris Trophy this year as the NHL's best defenseman.

"So many good players," Hedman said. "If you look at the top two, obviously Josi and [Cale] Makar, they're a little bit of different players, but really high-skilled offensively. It'll be a tough vote this year, but I'd probably go with Josi."
Josi is just the 10th defenseman in NHL history to record 89 points in a season and is the first D-man to reach that total since Ray Borque and Sergei Zubov did so during the 1993-94 season.
The Predators are one of just three teams, along with Calgary and Edmonton, to have two skaters with at least 39 goals in Matt Duchene and Filip Forsberg. With his 40th goal last Tuesday, Duchene became the first player in Predators franchise history to hit the 40-goal mark.
The Lightning have placed a heavy emphasis on being responsible in the defensive zone to generate offense. Tampa Bay will have to be sharp in their own end tonight against a Nashville team with a lot of offensive weapons.
The Bolts played with high intensity on Thursday against a potential playoff opponent in the Maple Leafs and will hope to have that same mentality tonight against the Predators, who currently hold the first wild card spot in the Western Conference.
One player who will likely play with that same intensity is Lightning forward Pat Maroon, who dropped the gloves with Wayne Simmonds on Thursday against Toronto. Maroon has been heavily involved in the physical game when these two teams clash with three fights over the last five games against Nashville.
After passing Martin St. Louis as the Lightning's all-time leading scorer on Thursday, Stamkos will look to continue adding onto his current point total of 956. Tonight will be a good opportunity for Stamkos, who was the first star in the Bolts win at Nissan Stadium with one goal and two assists. Stamkos leads the Lightning franchise for scoring all-time against Nashville with 14 goals and 12 assists for 26 points in 21 games. The Markham, Ontario native is currently riding a nine-game point streak against the Predators with eight goals and seven assists for 15 points during that span.