Tampa Bay Lightning vs Florida Panthers - Odds and Predictions

Where: BB&T Arena – Sunrise, FL.

When: Tuesday, December 10, 7PM EST

How (TV/Radio): Sportsnet, Fox Sports Florida, SunS | WFAN

Tampa Bay Lightning (Away)

Head Coach: Jon Cooper{All-Time 319-169-47 TBL}

The Tampa Bay Lightning are 5-4-1 in their last ten games.

Nothing spectacular, mind you, but they are coming off of an incredibly dominant 7-1 performance over the San Jose Sharks and they hope to carry that momentum into Tuesday night’s game.

Offense

This is not the same team we saw last season. But it’s also not the same team we saw at the start of this season. Things are getting better.

The Tampa Bay Lightning round out the top-ten in the league when it comes to scoring, netting a combined 90 goals. Their 11.3 percent shooting percentage is also the fourth-best in the NHL. They also have the highest average goals per game at 3.74.

The team’s power play has also really come around in the last few weeks. The Bolt’s have the league’s third-best power play at 29.27 percent and a combined 24 power-play goals. In fact, one-third of the total goals this season have come on the power play.

The team is still without forward Tyler Johnson but that is the only injury facing the Tampa Bay Lightning’s offense heading into Tuesday night.

Defense

The Tampa Bay Lightning have allowed significantly fewer goals against this season than their state rivals. They have allowed a total of 81 goals – the 11th-fewest against in the league.

A lot of that reason is that the Bolts have also allowed the tenth-fewest shots against this season. However, the Panthers, on average, allow fewer shots against per game.

Unfortunately, their penalty kill will be challenged. The Lightning average just over ten penalty minutes per game and have the 11th-worst penalty-killing unit in the league with only a 77.91 percent.

Goaltending

Starting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy is expected to be in net for the Bolts Tuesday night. Vasilevskiy has shown some signs of improvement since his weak start to the season and now sits with a season record of 11-8-1. He has a 2.91 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage. He has still yet to register a shutout.

Head Coach: Joel Quenneville{All-Time 905-541-77-142 FLA, CHI, COL, STL}

Like Tampa, the Panthers are also coming off of a victory over the San Jose Sharks. Florida beat the Sharks 5-1, giving them their second win in a row. They are 6-4-0 in their last ten games.

Offense

This is a high-shooting Florida Panthers team. With 928 shots on net, the Panthers have the eighth-most shots in the league. They also have the third-highest game average at just over 34 shots per game.

Their shooting percentage, although not ranked as high as Tampa’s, is still in the top-ten in the league. The Panthers have a shooting percentage of ten percent.

They also have the eighth-best power play. Again, not as highly ranked as the Lightning, but the Panther still have a respectable power-play percentage of 22.89 percent with 19 power-play goals.

A big advantage, however, is that unlike the Lightning, the Panthers don’t rely solely on their power play to score goals. The Panthers rank seventh in the league when it comes to goals at even strength with 72.

Defense

The Florida Panthers have all the advantage when it comes to defensive special teams. First of all, they allow fewer shots than their opponents – significantly less.

Secondly, the Panthers only average 6.9 penalty minutes per game – the fourth-lowest average in the league. Their penalty-killing unit also ranks well ahead of Tampa Bay. Florida has the seventh-best penalty kill in the league at 84.85 percent.

The weakness, of course, is the goaltending. If the offense wasn’t so good this season, the Panthers would not be where they are. The team has a combined save percentage of .885 – the fourth-worst in the entire league this season.

They have a slight disadvantage in the faceoff circle as well against Tampa Bay but it is hardly noticeable. But, a disadvantage is a disadvantage, and the less you start with the puck the more you play on your heels.

Goaltending

Sergei Bobrovsky, who continues to have some of the worst numbers of his career, is expected to get the start for the Panthers. Bobrovsky has a winning record of 11-6-4 but his goals-against average only sits at 3.24 and his save percentage is only .893. He does have one shutout this season.

These two teams opened this season against each other back on October 5. The Florida Panthers came out as the victors, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning with a final score of 4-3.

Home-state pride!

These two division rivals are always fighting to be Florida’s top team.

But there is more to gain here for both teams. Florida, despite suffering from poor goaltending, are still finding ways to score and win games.

They currently sit higher in the standings than they have in a while.

On the other side of the coin are the Bolts who, after a terrible start to the season, are starting to pull things back together and climb the standings. Both teams have plenty to gain from this matchup.

Questions to Answer

How ill two struggling goalies perform against each other? Vasilevskiy is far from his form of last season as is Sergei Bobrovsky. Luckily, both of these teams have enough offensive power to bail out poor goaltending.

Speaking of strong offense, Florida and Tampa are both ranked in the top-ten when it comes to goals scored and are only three goals apart. Are we anticipating a high scoring game? Most likely

How important of a role will the special teams play? The Bolts have a better power play percentage but the Panthers are better at killing penalties.

Tampa Bay Lightning Injury Report

D Braydon Coburn – DL (lower-body)

F Tyler Johnson – OUT (lower-body)

Florida Panthers Injury Report

F Jayce Hawryluk – day-to-day (upper-body)

The odds will be updated as they are made available.

Tampa Bay Lightning vs Florida Panthers Odds

The odds for this game are provided by bet365 NJ, DraftKings Sportsbook, and 888Sport NJ.

Good luck!

Money Line