Goals could be at a premium on Tuesday when the Nashville Predators host the Tampa Bay Lightning to conclude a five-game homestand.
Both teams rank among the NHL’s bottom five in goals per game.
The Predators saw their two-game winning streak come to an end with a 3-2 loss Sunday against the Dallas Stars. Nashville led their Central Division foe 2-0 midway through the game before the Stars rallied in regulation to claim the two points.
Veteran defenseman Roman Josi missed the Stars loss as well as Saturday’s win over the Los Angeles Kings due to an upper-body injury. He’s considered week-to-week, although Nashville has not placed its captain on injured reserve.
Josi’s injury came just as the team welcomed back forward Jonathan Marchessault, who returned Saturday after a lower-body injury kept him out for three games. He scored the Predators’ first goal against the Stars — his third of the season — on a power play.
Although the season is less than three weeks old, the Predators already have played 10 games. They have averaged just 2.5 goals per game, which tied them with the Florida Panthers for 27th place through Sunday’s games. No Nashville skater averages a point per game, with Ryan O’Reilly’s five goals and nine points tops.
Marchessault’s power-play goal broke a streak of 11 straight fruitless chances with the man advantage. At 9.7% (3-for-31), only the Carolina Hurricanes (6.9%) have a worse conversion rate.
Marchessault believes the team’s consistency needs to improve.
“Sometimes I feel like there’s one line that’s doing better than others, and I think we need a better effort from around the lineup on the ice,” he said. “I think that’s how you build success in the league is when everybody’s pushing in the same direction.”
The Lightning also are coming off back-to-back home games as they beat the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday before knocking off the Vegas Golden Knights 2-1 Sunday in overtime. Nikita Kucherov netted his third of the season for the winner just 32 seconds into the 3-on-3 session.
Kucherov is tied for second on the team with eight points alongside defenseman Victor Hedman. Anthony Cirelli leads Tampa Bay with five goals and Jake Guentzel has a team-best 10 points.
Tampa Bay sorely needed those wins after taking just one of its first seven games. Similar to the Predators, the Lightning’s 2.67 goals per game rank fifth-worst in the league. They also are struggling on the power play, scoring once in their last 15 chances.
They went 0-for-5 Sunday, but coach Jon Cooper felt his team came up with prime opportunities that Vegas goalie Carl Lindbom kept out of the net.
“We were in the zone,” Cooper said. “We were getting looks. … The power play, it did everything but score.”
Sunday’s win also served as the first this season for Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy. He stopped 18 shots and posted a season-best .947 save percentage. The Russian is 9-3-1 with a 2.34 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage against the Predators. He won his only start against Nashville last season, a 3-2 overtime home win on Oct. 28 in which he recorded 35 saves.
Nashville goalie Juuse Saros has just a 4-6-4 mark against Tampa Bay with a 3.42 GAA and an .890 save percentage in 14 appearances. His last win against the Lightning came on Dec. 7, 2023, when he stopped 32 shots in a 5-1 home win.
–Field Level Media
