The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Colorado Avalanche meet in game two of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals in NHL action from the Ball Arena on Saturday.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to steal home ice and bounce back after their 4-3 OT loss in game one last time out. Nikita Kucherov leads the Bolts in scoring with 24 points including a team-high 17 assists while Ondrej Palat has 17 points with a team-high 9 goals and 8 apples. Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman each have 15 points with Stamkos logging 9 goals while Hedman has 13 assists so far in the postseason. Andrei Vasilevskiy will make the start here and has gone 12-6 with a .925 save percentage and a 2.36 GAA this postseason.
The Colorado Avalanche will look to keep their momentum going after their win over the Rangers from the other night. Cale Makar leads the Avs in scoring with 22 points including a team-high 17 assists while Nathan MacKinnon has 19 points with a team-high 11 goals and 8 assists. Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen each have 19 points with Landeskog logging 9 goals while Rantanen has 14 assists. Darcy Kuemper’s gone 7-2 in the net for Colorado this postseason with a 2.68 GAA and an .895 save percentage. Pavel Francouz has also gone 6-0 with a 2.86 GAA and a .906 save percentage this season.
Tampa Bay is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall and 4-0 in their last 4 Saturday games while the under is 10-2 in their last 12 games against a team with a winning record. Colorado is 58-13 in their last 71 home games and 4-0 in their last 4 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the over is 3-0-1 in their last 4 games against the Atlantic division.
I get why one could look at the lightning here, as this is a veteran and experienced Lightning group that doesn’t lose back-to-back games often. However, the Avs were the better team for much of game one and I think the Lightning could be running out of gas. The Lightning just look sluggish and I think the Lighting go back home down 0-2 here. Give me the Avalanche and the reasonable price on the ML here.