After Milton postponed dwelling opener, Lightning face winless Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks open a four-game street journey on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday evening in quest of their first win of the season.

The Canucks dropped back-to-back video games on dwelling ice final week to begin the season. Vancouver squandered a 4-1 lead and fell 6-5 in additional time in opposition to the Calgary Flames on Wednesday, and adopted it up with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.

“We lose two video games in additional time, so we have to watch out. Can we play higher? Yeah. May we do higher coverage-wise in sure (areas)? Yeah, however that is due to some new, unfamiliar gamers, and I am not blaming them,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet mentioned. “Some guys have not performed loads of video games. There’s just a few protection issues that we have got to iron out.”

Ahead Brock Boeser has two targets via two video games, whereas captain Quinn Hughes has a pair of assists.

The 2 Canucks goaltenders have cut up the primary two video games this season. First was Arturs Silovs, who gave up all six targets in opposition to Calgary for a 5.94 goals-against common with a .769 save share.

Kevin Lankinen allowed two targets earlier than the shootout in opposition to Philadelphia and posted a .935 save share. Lankinen has 5 profession appearances in opposition to the Lightning and is 0-3-1 with a 4.37 GAA and an .872 save share.

Vancouver and Tampa Bay cut up the season sequence final season, with the Lightning profitable 4-3 on Oct. 19 and the Canucks incomes the cut up in a 4-1 win on Dec. 12.

Tampa Bay returns to motion after having its Saturday dwelling sport in opposition to the Carolina Hurricanes postponed because of Hurricane Milton.

On Friday, the Lightning opened the season with a 4-1 win over the Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C. Ahead Nikita Kucherov, final season’s Artwork Ross Trophy winner because the NHL’s main scorer, had a pure hat trick within the third interval and added an help within the win.

“It was an awesome first step in opposition to Carolina, however you watch the tape once more, and it is like, ‘We have got loads of work to do,'” Lightning coach Jon Cooper mentioned. “Our gamesmanship, our battle and our compete was actually excessive. I liked the best way we closed out the third (however) we have to place ourselves in a bit higher place to win these video games transferring ahead.

“We’ll take our two factors and preserve pushing ahead right here this week.”

Tampa Bay captain Victor Hedman had three assists, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves within the win.

Jake Guentzel, who signed a seven-year contract with the Bolts in free company over the summer season, added two assists in his Lightning debut.

“There’s loads of actually good issues that got here out of that sport that we did nicely — clearly some issues that we nonetheless acquired to tighten up,” ahead Anthony Cirelli mentioned. “Just a little bit too many odd-man rushes that got up there — little issues that I feel we simply need to deal with a little bit bit extra and be prepared for the following sport.”

Tuesday is the primary of two conferences between the Canucks and Lightning. The 2 groups conclude the season sequence on Dec. 8 in Vancouver.

–Subject Stage Media