NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tampa Bay Lightning go on the road Saturday afternoon to face a familiar face. Tampa Bay plays the Nashville Predators at 2 p.m. Eastern in Nashville, where former Lightning captain Steven Stamkos is one of the Predators’ top scorers.
Tampa Bay comes in at 8-3-1 and riding a 7-2-1 run over its last 10 games. The Lightning beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 at home Thursday night behind a career-best four points from Pontus Holmberg, a goal and three assists. Tampa Bay has scored on the power play in five straight games, going 5 for 16 in that stretch. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 17 shots and is now 6-3-0 this season.
The Lightning have been better at home than away so far, at 2-3-1 on the road. They have outscored opponents 44-38 overall. Nikita Kucherov leads the team with 15 points on four goals and 11 assists, and Brandon Hagel has piled up 14 points across the past 10 games, eight of them goals.
Nashville is 4-4-5 and 3-2-2 at home after a 4-3 loss to the Washington Capitals in which Filip Forsberg scored twice. Stamkos has seven goals and eight assists, tied for the team lead in both goals and points. This is the first meeting of the season between the two clubs. Over their last 10 games, the Lightning are averaging four goals a night while allowing three, and the Predators have gone 3-3-4 while giving up a little more than three goals per game.
Tampa Bay will be without Yanni Gourde, who is out with a hip injury, and Zemgus Girgensons is day to day with a lower-body injury. Nashville is missing William Trudeau with an upper-body injury.
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