The Lightning were finally reasonably healthy coming into the game tonight. Starting goalie Ben Bishop and captain Steven Stamkos are still injured of course. But Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Jonathan Drouin, Braydon Coburn, and Victor Hedman were all back to playing as normal after all had suffered varying degrees of injury in the last week. But before the game, the Lightning announced the team would be dealing with another unexpected absence as Valtteri Filppula was suspended from the game for missing a meeting earlier in the day.
As has been the case so many times this season, the Bolts gave up the first goal.