(SportsNetwork.com) – The Philadelphia Flyers will try to continue their
recent surge when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning in Tuesday’s battle at
Wells Fargo Center.
The Flyers are 2-0 at the start of a four-game homestand and enter Tuesday on
a five-game point streak. Despite a 3-0-2 mark in its last five outings,
however, Philadelphia is still five points out of a playoff spot in the
Eastern Conference.
The Lightning, meanwhile, are tied with Detroit for first in the Atlantic
Division, but Tampa enters tonight having lost two straight and four of its
last five games. The Bolts fell Monday evening in Pittsburgh, dropping a 4-2
decision against a Penguins team that played without Sidney Crosby.
Philadelphia has been able to dial up the offense so far on its homestand,
scoring a total of nine goals in wins over New Jersey and Carolina. The Flyers
notched a 4-1 win over the Devils on Thursday and downed the Hurricanes 5-1 on
Saturday afternoon.
Wayne Simmonds, Scott Laughton and Jakub Voracek led Saturday’s offensive
onslaught with each player posting a goal and an assist. Laughton’s tally,
which made it a 4-1 game before the midway point of the second period, was the
rookie’s first career goal.
“It’s nice to get that one to get it out of the way and just keep going,” said
Laughton.
Michael Raffl and Sean Couturier also scored while Steve Mason made 25 saves
for the Flyers, who improved to 8-4-2 as the host.
Philadelphia is hoping to get as many points as it can from this homestand.
After completing the residency Thursday against Florida, the Flyers will play
eight straight on the road, where they are 3-9-3 this season.
The Lightning have dominated the Flyers over the past several years and enter
tonight on a five-game winning streak in the series. Tampa also has taken
eight of nine and 12 of the past 15 encounters overall and four of six in
Philadelphia.
Tampa lost the second stop on a five-game road trip with Monday’s setback in
the Steel City. Four different players scored for Pittsburgh, while Jonathan
Drouin and Nikita Kucherov tallied for the Lightning.
Making matters worse, the Bolts also lost their No. 1 goaltender Ben Bishop,
who allowed a goal on five shots in the first period before exiting with a
lower-body injury. Evgeni Nabokov finished the contest with 18 stops in
defeat.
“I thought we carried the play for a lot of the game, to be honest,” Lightning
coach Jon Cooper said. “We scored three goals on ourselves; three went off us
in the net. It’s hard to win when you put three in the net. We put three in
our net and two in theirs.”
Nabokov will start tonight and the Lightning recalled goaltender Andrei
Vasilevskiy to serve as the backup. The severity of Bishop’s injury has yet to
be revealed.
Mason is 1-2-1 with a 3.25 goals against average in his career against the
Lightning and he expects to start tonight for the Flyers.
