The Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning meet Monday in game 3 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals at the Amalie Arena. The Colorado Avalanche look for another win to take a 3-0 series lead. The Tampa Bay Lightning need a win here to cut the series deficit to 1-2.
The Colorado Avalanche are averaging 4.75 goals per game and are scoring on 32.7 percent of their power play opportunities. Nathan MacKinnon leads Colorado with 11 goals, Cale Makar has 17 assists and Valeri Nichushkin has 58 shots on goal. Defensively, the Colorado Avalanche are allowing 2.69 goals per game and are killing 79.1 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Darcy Kuemper has allowed 27 goals on 273 shots faced, and Pavel Francouz has given up 15 goals on 160 shots.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are averaging 2.89 goals per game and are scoring on 20.6 percent of their power play opportunities. Ondrej Palat leads Tampa Bay with 9 goals, Nikita Kucherov has 17 assists and Victor Hedman has 59 shots on goal. Defensively, the Tampa Bay Lightning are allowing 2.74 goals per game and are killing 79.7 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up 50 goals on 609 shots faced.
The Avalanche are 23-9 in their last 32 road games and 57-19 in their last 76 overall. The Lightning are 40-15 in their last 55 home games and 4-1 in their last 5 overall. The over is 5-2 in Avalanche last 7 road games. The under is 10-2 in Lightning last 12 overall. The Avalanche are 4-1 in the last 5 meetings. The favorite is 16-5 in the last 21 meetings.
Game 3 is usually where the team trailing the series usually gets the job done if they’re going to make this a series. This is a must win game if the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to make this a series and no matter how bad they’ve looked through the first two games, they’re still an experienced championship team that’s probably not going to go down easily. With that said, the Colorado Avalanche have had their way in the first two games, and they’ve been the best team in the league all year that can also get the job done on the road. It’s easy to take the Lightning because they’re at home now. I’ve been more impressed with the Avs and lean them here with the pick em price.