TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Lightning wrap up the regular season tonight with a match-up against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Amalie Arena.
The Bolts clinched a playoff berth a few weeks ago; we already know they will play the Florida Panthers in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But there is still some drama tonight against Toronto.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov is one assist shy from 100 on the season. If he gets it, he will become only the fifth player in NHL history to reach that milestone.
“We want him to get it,” defenseman Darren Raddysh said. “It’s kind of been on our minds the last couple of games. If I have a chance to get open, if we can make it happen, we’re going to try to do that.”
“It’s something incredible just watching him every day,” forward Mitchell Chaffee added. “During the game, you just know there is no other player like him, it’s pretty incredible. Everyone on this team wants him to hit 100.”
Even with one game to go, you can’t help but look at what’s ahead. For the third time in four years, the Bolts will face in-state rival Florida in the playoffs. This season, the Panthers won two of the three regular-season meetings with Tampa Bay.
“We’ve had recent playoff games against each other or series,” head coach Jon Cooper said. The team knows each other extremely well. If we do have a rival, and we have a few in this league, that would arguably be our biggest one.”
The first-round series will begin in Sunrise either on Saturday, April 20, or Sunday, April 21.
Another milestone is on the line tonight — Toronto’s Auston Matthews needs one more goal to become the first American-born player to reach 70 goals.
