Bolts look to start win streak vs. Blues tonight

The Tampa Bay Lightning haven't won consecutive games since reeling off four in a row to start a five game road trip November 14-19.
Since then, the Bolts have picked up just three victories in their last 14 games.
One of those wins came Tuesday night in a complete 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings.
The Lightning will look to make it two in a row and win consecutive games for the first time in over a month when they take on the St. Louis Blues tonight at AMALIE Arena (7:30 p.m.).

"We just want to win games right now," Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin said.
The Bolts fell 5-4 to the Blues earlier this season, St. Louis jumping out to a 4-1 lead and holding on courtesy of Vladimir Tarasenko's hat trick. The Lightning have lost six straight to the Blues, the Bolts last victory coming Nov. 2, 2013, a 4-2 home win.
"We've got to be disciplined," Drouin said. "(St. Louis) scored three power-play goals against us the last time we played them. They have deadly power-play shooters all over the ice, so that's probably the biggest point. What we want to take away from the Detroit game is the way that we skated. We were pushing the pace and not letting the other team push the pace."
Video: Cooper on Vasilevskiy starting for injured BishopSINGING THE BLUES: The Lightning gave up three power-play goals to St. Louis - tied for the most they've allowed this season -- when the two teams met earlier on Dec. 1 at Scottrade Center.
That poor performance by the Bolts' penalty kill was the start of a continual slide for the special teams unit. The Bolts have given up multiple power play goals, including another three spot, in three of eight games since that debacle in St. Louis.
"We watched obviously the clips from that St. Louis (game) again today and we gave up three (power-play goals), but the four that we killed off, we were really good," Bolts forward Brian Boyle said. "So I think it's that consistency. Every penalty you've got to kill two minutes. That's something that, it's been there. It hasn't been just wave after wave of shots. We've given up goals but in the same game we've killed a big penalty. We've done a good job. So, it's something that we need to find our consistency. A lot of that's mental, and a lot of that's attitude. We've gone over it enough times and have explained it here enough times in the last three days. We've just to go out and do it."
Currently, the Bolts are ranked tied for 23rd on the penalty kill at 79.1 percent. If the season were to end today, the Bolts penalty kill percentage would be their lowest since the 2008-09 season when they killed off only 78 percent of opponent penalties.
"(The penalty kill slide) started a little bit before (the St. Louis loss)," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "You start giving up multiple goals in the game on the penalty kill, you give up one, that's going to happen, but you can't give up multiples. It almost seemed like after (the St. Louis) game we were giving up multiple goals a game. Hopefully the game against Detroit is a step forward to fix that."
The Lightning went 5-for-5 on the penalty kill in Tuesday's victory over the Red Wings, the first time in five games the Bolts didn't allow a power-play goal.
So what were the Lightning able to do against the Red Wings that they weren't able to do in previous outings?
"When you're killing a penalty, you've got to take pride in it," Cooper said. "It's hard work to do because you're pretty much playing without the puck the whole time. It's not near as glamorous as being on the power play. I think that was one of the big things, first, we're going to take pride in killing penalties. Once you get over that hurdle, everything else comes a little bit easier. We were a little inconsistent in our structure. We've really tried to straighten that out, and the guys are just competing hard. Every time we took a penalty (against Detroit), you could just hear them on the bench like, 'We're killing this off.' So, when you start with that attitude, it can help, and it will help us here tonight."
VASILEVSKIY SHOULDERS THE LOAD: With Ben Bishop out for three to four weeks with a lower-body injury suffered in Tuesday's win over Detroit, Andrei Vasilevskiy will be expected take over as the Lightning's everyday goalie.
Kristers Gudlevskis was recalled from Syracuse on Wednesday to provide support, but make no mistake, it's Vasilevskiy's show until Bishop returns.
"Vasilevskiy now is obviously going to take the lead role here for a while, while Bish is out," Cooper said. "We've not ever anticipated that our guys are going to get hurt, but he's been playing more and we've been obviously grooming him into playing more games in the NHL.
"Now, he's definitely getting his chance."
Vasilevskiy picked up his first victory since November 23 on Tuesday when he stopped 22-of-23 shots in relief of Bishop, who headed to the locker room a little over 12 minutes into the game.
It was a similar scenario to the one Vasilevskiy faced in Game 1 of the 2016 Eastern Conference Final at Pittsburgh. In that playoff game, Bishop was lost in the first period to an injury that would keep him out for the remainder of the postseason. Vasilevskiy stepped in and made 25-of-26 saves to win, becoming the first goalie since Olaf Kolzig (1995-96) to record his first two playoff victories in relief (also: Game 2 of Stanley Cup Final vs. Chicago).
Vasilevskiy's experience performing well in pressure-filled situations gives the Bolts optimism he can perform well while Bishop heals.
"The one thing about playing that position, you need reps," Cooper said. "Slowly but surely, he's been getting those reps over the last couple of years. They're going to pile up pretty fast now. He's a National Hockey League goaltender and a really good one. The future's bright for him, but the thing is now, the future is now for him and we're going to need him to be big while Bish is out."
ICE CHIPS: Ondrej Palat (undisclosed injury) wore a regular jersey during Lightning morning skate and Nikita Kucherov (lower-body injury) was in a grey jersey, but Cooper said neither would play tonight. "Don't be fooled by the jersey colors," Cooper said. "We're losing more players than we're adding tonight so that's a problem."…Ryan Callahan, who has missed the last 10 games with a lower-body injury, did not participate in morning skate. Vladislav Namestnikov and Cedric Paquette were absent as well…The Lightning are starting the middle set of a stretch of three back-to-back sets in 14 days tonight against St. Louis…The Bolts are 2-2-0 in the first game of a back-to-back so far this season…Tampa Bay's power play ranks third in the league at 23.3 percent behind only Columbus (27.1%) and Anaheim (24.3%).