The Detroit Red Wings open their 2021-2022 season against the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight (7:30 PM EDT on Bally Sports Detroit/Bally Sports Sun/97.1 FM), and the Red Wings will have their hands full with Tampa Bay.
The Bolts had a 5-2-and-1 record against the Red Wings last season, and they’re in a particularly bad mood after coming off a 6-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on their Stanley Cup banner-raising opening night.
The Bolts are relatively healthy, with the exception of Zach Bogosian, who didn’t practice on Wednesday, and Field Level Media set up tonight’s game with the following:
Tampa Bay’s banner-raising celebration on Tuesday was marred by a 6-2 loss to Pittsburgh. It hadn’t lost a season opener since the 2013-14 season.
Pittsburgh scored the first three goals of the game, then tacked on three empty-netters in the late going.
“We tried to find answers and we couldn’t,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “It was like we were stuck in mud the whole night. It was tough because I really haven’t seen that out of us in a long time. It’s going to happen, but in Game 1 is not really when you’re expecting it to happen.”
Unlike last season, a capacity crowd witnessed the Lightning raise the Stanley Cup banner. Stamkos believes the team may have gotten caught up in the moment, as the Penguins played aggressively and consistently beat them in puck battles.
“They outworked us,” Stamkos said. “We were chasing the puck all night. You’ve got to give them credit. Hopefully, that’s just a little bit of a wake-up call for our group that you’ve got to go out and execute. We had success the last two years for a reason. We didn’t show that (Tuesday) to have success.”
If you wish to watch a bit of Tampa’s opener, you can do so via Sportsnet’s highlights…
The Tampa Bay Times’ Eduardo A. Encina spoke with Lightning assistant coach Jeff Halpern after Wednesday’s practice…
The Lightning hope their first impression this season won’t be a lasting one.
“It’s definitely something you take notice to try to fix, because there’s been a lot of different parts of our game that as a group — players, coaches, everyone — we weren’t happy with,” assistant coach Jeff Halpern said Wednesday. “As far as our process and how we go about our business, hopefully we learn from that, and there’s a message to it as well, and you clean some things up and move forward.”
After being outworked against the Penguins, the Lightning returned to Amalie Arena 12 hours later for a quick-paced practice before flying to Detroit for tonight’s road opener. They focused on raising their compete level, chasing pucks, winning 50-50 battles and covering all 200 feet of the ice as a unit, things they lacked Tuesday.
“It’s one game, and there’s a reason why there’s 82 games,” forward Mathieu Joseph said. “They’re not going to be perfect, but it’s the beginning of the season, and you have to compete to win in this league, and if you don’t work, you won’t win. So I think at the end of the day, we just have to bring our work ethic higher, and I think all the guys did that in practice.”
The Lightning tinkered with their bottom two lines, reuniting Pat Maroon with Ross Colton and Corey Perry, and putting Joseph with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, his partner on the penalty kill, and rookie Taylor Raddysh.
Asked what Tampa Bay is looking for with its bottom-line combinations, Halpern responded, “Something that works.”
TampaBayLightning.com’s Bryan Burns also posted a superb game preview…
Thursday’s Matchup: The Lightning and the Red Wings are playing their first of four matchups this season and the first of two at Little Caesars Arena…Tampa Bay is 6-1-2 in nine all-time meetings with Detroit at Little Caesars Arena…The Lightning went 2-1-1 in Detroit last season and claimed a 2-1 victory in their last visit to Little Caesars Arena May 2, Blake Coleman (0:16 – 1st) and Mikhail Sergachev (1:09 – 2nd) scoring to put the Bolts ahead 2-0 and Christopher Gibson stopping 22-of-23 shots for his first and only win with Tampa Bay and first NHL victory since March 20, 2018 (4th NHL win overall)…Tampa Bay is 8-1-1 in Detroit since the start of the 2016-17 season…The Lightning own an all-time record of 12-18-1 with one tie in Detroit…The Bolts are 21-2-2 overall against Detroit in the last 25 reg. season meetings between the two teams…Andrei Vasilevskiy is 12-0-0 in 12 career reg. season starts versus Detroit, one of three teams Vasilevskiy has yet to lose to (also: 11-0-0 vs. CHI and 4-0-0 ANA).
Thursday’s Storylines: Tampa Bay is playing its first road contest of the 2021-22 regular season and begins a two-game road trip tonight…The Lightning are 11-16-1 all-time in road openers…The Bolts are hoping to avoid starting the season with two-straight losses for the first time since going 0-1-2 to begin 2009-10…Tampa Bay hasn’t suffered two regulation losses to start a season since 2008-09…Since the start of the 2017-18 season, Tampa Bay owns the best road regular season points percentage in the NHL (91-43-12, .664), ahead of Washington (87-47-12, .637)…Since Jon Cooper’s first full season in 2013-14, Tampa Bay has collected 379 combined regular season wins, most in the NHL over that span.
And Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted 7 reasons why the Red Wings might be able to beat the odds and defeat Tampa Bay on Thursday:
2. Tight Games Last Season: The Detroit Red Wings were competitive against Tampa Bay last season. On April 4, the Red Wings defeated the Lightning 5-1 to end a 10-year losing streak in Tampa. They were 0-16-1 in their previous 17 game at Amalie Arena. Overall, the Red Wings were 3-4-1 against the two-time Stanley Cup champions in 2020-21. Two of their losses were by 2-1 verdicts.
3. Eroded Depth: In the offseason, the Lightning lost their entire third line (Blake Coleman, Yanni Gourde and Barclay Goodrow) to the expansion draft and free agency. They also traded away Tyler Johnson who has been a Red Wing-abuser in the past. The Lightning are not as hard to play against as they were last season. Their depth has been eroded.
4. Salary Cap Problems: The Lightning only had five defensemen at practice Wednesday. Zach Bogosian wasn’t able to practice and the Lightning provided no update. Unless the Lightning place a player on Long-Term Injured Reserve they can’t call up a player from their farm team. They don’t have any cap space.
The first game is always difficult to preview, and I’m a little rusty at this, but I’ll get better as time goes by. Here’s hoping this was useful for you and that you enjoy the game.
