Bolts look to bounce back in return home tonight against Devils

The first game back at home following a long road trip can often be one of the more difficult games on the schedule for any National Hockey League team.
Tampa Bay Lightning forward J.T. Miller doesn't feel like the Bolts will have any trouble getting up for their contest tonight against the New Jersey Devils, however.

That's because the Lightning were blitzed 7-1 by Arizona in their last game Saturday night and are eager to return to the ice to prove that ugly score line was an aberration.
"I think we're ready to go back out and have a bounce-back game regardless," Miller said. "We're definitely all excited to be back home."

Take a step back from the Lightning's recently-completed, season-long five game road trip and the results are mostly positive. Tampa Bay took seven of a possible 10 points from the trip, a success by any measure. The Lightning were able to get a point in Minnesota, a place where they'd only gotten points in three of 12 previous attempts all-time. The Bolts doubled up the Blackhawks in Chicago by a 6-3 count. They shut out Colorado, one of the NHL's hottest teams, in Denver. And they held on for a gutty, one-goal win in Vegas - a team they had never beaten previously - despite losing Victor Hedman for much of the game and Ondrej Palat in the third period while trying to preserve the victory.
The drubbing at the hands of the Coyotes takes some of the shine off the road trip but shouldn't discredit what the Bolts were able to do in totality.
"If you're going to say you get (seven out of 10 points) at the start of the road trip, we would have been happy," said Lightning forward Tyler Johnson, who's riding a two-game point streak entering tonight's tilt against New Jersey. "Unfortunate the way the last game played out and how we played, but you turn the page. We have a new game now, and we're not even thinking about it."
Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said he has full confidence his group will rebound from its poor showing in Arizona.
"This group has really been able to stop anything that's had a sense of going wrong for a while," Cooper said. "It was one game at the end of the road trip. Are we going to sit here and say that's going to translate into, 'Oh, we're going to win for sure?' No. How are we going to compete? How are we going to respond? You don't know how the game's going to play out, but in regards to that, this group's always been exceptional. So no worries."
The Lightning were missing Victor Hedman (upper body) and Ondrej Palat (lower body) in the loss to Arizona and will have to play without their two veterans again tonight versus New Jersey. Their absence certainly played in role in the Lightning's lopsided loss. So too did the amount of minutes the defensive corps had to play a night earlier in Las Vegas to account for Hedman's absence.
"It wasn't the way we wanted to end the trip, but in saying that, you could kind of feel that game guys were definitely a little drained from the trip," Bolts captain Steven Stamkos said. "We had a solid trip up until that point. It was just one of those nights where everything that was shot on net was getting deflected and going on. You shake those off. Those are going to happen over the course of an 82-game season. It's the way you respond, and I guarantee we'll come out with a better effort tonight."

New Jersey is a team quite familiar to the Lightning. The two teams battled in the First Round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs last season, Tampa Bay prevailing in five hard-fought games. The Devils swept the Lightning during the regular season in 2017-18, although the Bolts have won four of their last five at home over the Devils.
"I think they probably gained some confidence from having a good season like they did last year and they've gotten off to a solid start," Stamkos said. "They've got some really good players. We know how tightly-checked tonight's game is going to be. It's going to be a disciplined game for us where we can't get frustrated if we're not wheeling and dealing out there. Special teams is going to play a big part. We're looking forward to the challenge."
PALAT UPDATE: The Lightning were supposed to find out more on the extent of Ondrej Palat's lower-body injury Monday afternoon. Cooper was asked following Tuesday's morning skate if the team received good news.
"Other than the fact that he says he's feeling a little bit better, but there's no setbacks or anything," the coach responded. "But he's out again tonight, and after that we'll just take it game by game."