The Tampa Bay Lighting start their playoffs on Wednesday at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Lightning enter the series following an historic regular season that saw them match the all-time wins record. The Jackets barely made it into the playoffs as the last wild card team in the Eastern Conference needing a late season push to cross the threshold.
As expected, Tampa are the favorites in this series. Dom Luszczyszyn has the Lightning at 75%, which is the heaviest I’ve seen them favored by any of the public models. Micah Blake Mccurdy’s model is more conservative putting the Bolts at 58% to win the series.