Coyotes' trip continues vs. resurgent Lightning
The Arizona Coyotes' eight-day, five-game, season-defining road trip head south on Tuesday for a game with the Tampa Bay Lightning -- 24 hours following a 3-2 loss at Washington.
The game can be seen on FOX Sports Arizona, beginning at 5 p.m.
The Coyotes (27-26-6) are 3-7-1 since Jan. 26 while surrendering 3.82 goals per game -- better than only Toronto's 4.00 in that span. They remain in 10th place in the Westeren Conference, six points behind Colorado, which currently holds the eighth and final playoff berth.
The Coyotes have coughed up power-play goals in each of their last three games to drop their penalty-kill percentage to 77.8, third worst in the league and ahead of only Calgary (73.2) and Ottawa (74.3).
Even while keeping the league's top-scoring team mostly in check Monday, the Coyotes couldn't catch a break in a 3-2 loss at Washington.
The eventual winner came after goaltender Louis Domingue appeared to cover a puck with his glove midway through the third period, but the whistle didn't blow and the puck squirted out to Mike Richards, who buried his first goal in 13 months for the Capitals.
"We competed hard, we did some good things, but still you've got to do enough to win games," coach Dave Tippett told FOX Sports Arizona. "That's the bottom line."
If this game is anything like this series has been over the last 14 years, Tampa Bay should have offensive opportunities. The Lightning are 12-3-1 against the Coyotes since January 2002 and have averaged 4.8 goals over the previous six meetings.
Tampa Bay outscored Arizona 11-5 in a pair of wins last season, and Nikita Kucherov had a hat trick in a 7-3 victory on Oct. 28, 2014.
The Lightning (33-22-4) are knocking on the door of the Atlantic Division leaders by virtue of three consecutive wins. They scored only 10 goals while losing four of five games earlier this month, but a revived offensive attack has helped them reclaim their place as one of the NHL's hottest teams.
Tampa Bay is 14-5 with a scoring average of 3.21 since Jan. 8 to move within five points of first-place Florida.
The Lightning have scored 13 times on their current streak, and they prevailed 4-2 at Carolina on Sunday even without points leader Kucherov, who missed the game with a lower body injury suffered during Saturday's 4-2 win at Pittsburgh.
Coach Jon Cooper is hoping Kucherov, who has 24 goals and 25 assists, is available Tuesday.
Without their leading scorer, they continued to get production from the player who is expected to top that list. On Feb. 15, general manager Steve Yzerman announced Tampa Bay would not trade a struggling Steven Stamkos before the Feb. 29 deadline.
Stamkos scored only twice in a 13-game span from Jan. 15-Feb. 16, but he's found the back of the net the last three games to overtake the team lead from Kucherov with 25 goals. His goal against the Hurricanes might have been the most important as it put the Lightning ahead in the third period and ended their 0-for-18 drought on the power play.
"There's no question that the power play's been struggling," said Ryan Callahan, who scored twice. "Sometimes, you need a big goal like that late in the third to get things rolling again."
