Lightning figure to have hands full with Leafs

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning will be seeking to end a three-game home slide Tuesday night at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The good news? Their opponent is playing the second half of back-to-back road games, and the Lightning have had excellent results when catching a team in that scenario.

The bad news? Their opponent is the sizzling Toronto Maple Leafs, coming off a 3-0 shutout of the Florida Panthers on Monday night. Toronto has posted a 7-2-0 record in their first nine road games of the season, a record of road success the likes of which the Maple Leafs have not enjoyed since the 1940-41 season.

Although Toronto had an optional skate Tuesday morning and coach Randy Carlyle was not available to confirm, the Lightning are likely to face netminder Ben Scrivens, who has posted back-to-back shutouts and a shutout streak of 142:21 with 79 consecutive saves.

"You have to be present in how things are going, but that being said, I played a lot of hockey the last couple of years down in the American Hockey League," said Scrivens, who was on the ice Tuesday morning. "That helped me develop and mature myself to a point where you can just roll with the punches. I'm confident in my game and what I need to do to play well. Of course, it won't always go this well, so you've got to enjoy the high times without getting too high."

Tampa Bay snapped a six-game winless streak with a 6-5 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday, but they needed a tying goal from Teddy Purcell with 11 seconds remaining in regulation and an overtime winner from Benoit Pouliot.

Despite allowing five goals, Lightning coach Guy Boucher was pleased with the effort.

"We had five goals scored against us on Saturday against Florida and that's not exactly what we want," he said. "But last game was a little tough; one guy fell and that's why they got a goal, the other one we blocked a shot which ends up on the goal line right on the guy's stick and it goes in. There were three of these goals where it's hard for me because I can't blame anybody.

"Actually it was really good," he said. "In some of our previous games you could see discouragement because guys were missing so many goals, but that's gone now. We don't have that attitude anymore of being frustrated because we don't score. Our attitude is in the right place right now."

LIGHTNING

Alexander Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Martin St. Louis

Cory Conacher – Vincent Lecavalier – Teddy Purcell

Benoit Pouliot – Tom Pyatt – Adam Hall

Richard Panik – Nate Thompson – B.J. Crombeen

Eric Brewer – Matthew Carle

Victor Hedman – Sami Salo

Marc-Andre Bergeron – Brian Lee

Anders Lindback

Mathieu Garon

Scratched: Keith Aulie

Injured: Ryan Malone

MAPLE LEAFS

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Phil Kessel

Leo Komarov - Mikhail Grabovski - Nikolai Kulemin

Clarke MacArthur - Nazem Kadri - Colton Orr

Frazer McLaren - Jay McClement - Mike Brown

Dion Phaneuf - Korbinian Holzer

Carl Gunnarsson - Michael Kostka

Mark Fraser - Cody Franson

Ben Scrivens

Jussi Rynnas

Scratched: John-Michael Liles, Mike Komisarek, David Steckel

Injured: James Reimer, Matt Frattin, Joffrey Lupul