At the Rink: Sabres at Lightning

TAMPA -- If the Tampa Bay Lightning hope to have better luck against the Buffalo Sabres at Amalie Arena on Thursday, they will need to work harder to find open shots.

The Sabres blocked 22 shots in a 2-1 win against the Lightning on Tuesday. In other to keep the highest scoring team in the NHL off balance, Buffalo left the Lightning forwards little room to work.

Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said it's up to him to generate more offense for the team in situations like that.

"One or two shots is not a recipe of success for me," said Stamkos, who had one shot on goal Tuesday. "I've got to start getting more pucks on the net."

Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said sometimes you have to credit the other team for a superior effort.

"They [Sabres] did a really good job and getting in the way with some pretty big guys," Cooper said. "Those guys got into the lanes and made it difficult for us. The onus is kind of on everybody to get better at it, but give Buffalo credit."

Buffalo has won its past three games and will try to be the rare team to stop Tampa Bay on home ice. The Lightning are 10-2-1 at Amalie Arena this year.

"It's going to be a tough challenge because they are a good team no matter where you play them," Sabres captain Brian Gionta said. "We have to build on Tuesday night's effort and slow them down and take their crowd out of it. Once those guys get skating they can put a lot of stress on the defense."

The Sabres will try to extend their win streak against Lightning goalie Ben Bishop, who did not play Tuesday.

"They're are on a pretty good streak, so it would be good to get a lead against them," Bishop said. "Their record doesn't show how good of a team they are."

Here are the projected lineups:

SABRES

Matt Moulson - Zemgus Girgensons - Tyler Ennis

Brian Flynn - Torrey Mitchell - Brian Gionta

Marcus Foligno - Cody Hodgson - Chris Stewart

Nicolas Deslauriers - Cody McCormick - Patrick Kaleta

Josh Gorges - Tyler Myers

Nikita Zadorov - Rasmus Ristolainen

Tyson Strachan - Mike Weber

Jhonas Enroth

Michal Neuvirth

Scratched: Andre Benoit

Injured: Drew Stafford (lower body), Andrej Meszaros (concussion-like symptoms)

LIGHTNING

Alex Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Ryan Callahan

Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov

Cedric Paquette - Valtteri Filppula - Brett Connolly

Brenden Morrow - Brian Boyle - Jonathan Drouin

Victor Hedman - Anton Stralman

Jason Garrison - Andrej Sustr

Matt Carle - Radko Gudas

Ben Bishop

Evgeni Nabokov

Scratched: Mark Barberio, J.T. Brown

Injured: None

Status report: Enroth is slated to start his sixth consecutive game. … The Lightning reassigned forward Vladislav Namestnikov to the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League.

Who's hot: Enroth has won his past three starts. … Johnson scored a goal in Tampa Bay's loss to Buffalo on Tuesday.