Lightning look to end losing skid against Capitals

The Tampa Bay Lightning are currently mired in their worst losing slump since the 2012-13 season having dropped four straight in regulation to fall to the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
The challenge doesn't get any easier for the Bolts, however.
The Lightning host the Washington Capitals tonight at AMALIE Arena (7 p.m. puck drop) in the opening game of a back-to-back set (Tampa Bay travels to Raleigh to play Carolina on Sunday). The Caps, who are sitting in the East's first wild card spot right now, swept the Lightning last season and have won four of their last five against the Bolts in Tampa.

"They're a 50-plus win team with all-stars all over the place and one of the top goaltenders in the league," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper answered when asked what kind of challenge the Caps present. "You throw all of that together and you've got a pretty good team. I'm sure they're sitting there saying they've dropped a couple here of late, but if you watch those games, they probably outplayed the team, they just lost the game."
The Caps are on a bit of losing skid themselves having lost two in a row, meaning someone's going home happy tonight and someone's going back to the drawing board to figure out what continues to go wrong.
"We're a ticked-off group," said Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop, who will get the start tonight after coming on in relief of Andrei Vasilevskiy two nights ago in St. Louis. "…(Washington is) going to be upset too. It should be good. It should be fun, two teams a little mad going at each other."
Alex Ovechkin leads the Caps and ranks tied for sixth in the NHL (along with Nikita Kucherov) for goals with 12 so far this season. Ovechkin has been a Lightning killer during his career, scoring more goals (40) against the Bolts than any other active league player.
Ovechkin's 81 career points against Tampa Bay are second only to Florida's Jaromir Jagr (82) among active players.
"He's a really good player," Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman said. "They have definitely a few lines that can feed him the puck too. It's about time and space and us five working on the ice as a unit, trying to contain him as best as we can."
BAD MEMORIES: The last time the Bolts and the Caps hooked up on the ice, Tampa Bay raced out to a 3-0 lead at the Verizon Center on December 18, 2015 only to watch Washington rally with five consecutive goals in a 5-3 loss.
Three of those goals came on the power play, which was the last time the Lightning had allowed three power-play goals in a game until St. Louis achieved the feat on Thursday night in a 5-4 Blues win.
Washington owned one of the top power-play units in the NHL last season, finishing fifth at 21.9 percent. The Caps haven't been nearly as deadly this season with the man-advantage, however, and are currently ranked tied for 24th in the league, converting at a 14.3 percent rate.
Still, the memories of that debacle in D.C. a year ago continue to haunt the Lightning.
"They have a really good power play," Bishop said. "In year's past, it's usually been kind of the X factor, them getting a couple power-play goals, so tonight it'll be important for us to stay out of the box."
The Lightning weren't able to stay out of the box in St. Louis, and the Blues were able to capitalize, netting three power-play goals on seven attempts. The first six power plays in that game went to St. Louis.
Once the Bolts finally got a power play of their own, they were able to convert in only seven seconds on Nikita Kucherov's wrist shot through Brian Boyle's legs (and screen).
"Special teams probably let us down a little bit," Cooper said. "You've got to kill off seven penalties, you're probably going to give up one. It was tough to give up three, and, ultimately, that was the difference.
"But other than that, we were alright."
In order to win tonight's game, the Lightning are going to have to win the special teams battle, which on paper doesn't appear all that difficult considering the Bolts have the league's second best power play and both teams' penalty kills are ranked in the middle of the league's standings.
"(Winning the special teams battle against the Caps) is hard to do because they're really good at that," Cooper said. "They've had our number of late, but, eventually, the tide's got to turn there and hopefully it's going to be tonight."
AN OLD NEMESIS RETURNS: At the beginning of the 2016-17 season, the Lightning were a slow-starting team and routinely had to rally from a deficit to win.
The poor starts seemed to be a thing of the past though as the calendar flipped from October to November, but, of late, the unsettling trend has crept back into the Bolts' game.
In St. Louis, the Lightning fell behind 2-0 for the fourth-straight game. Not coincidentally, the Bolts lost all four of those games.
"It's just about being ready to play," Bishop said. "Obviously, the last game, (St. Louis) had a couple power plays, but, no, it's just about being ready to go from the start. We can talk about it all we want, but it's about going out there and doing it."
ODDS AND ENDS: Ryan Callahan (lower-body injury) and Jason Garrison are both out of tonight's contest. Garrison took a slap shot to the knee in St. Louis and wasn't at the Bolts' morning skate on Saturday. "He took a shot in a spot where there was no pad," Cooper said. "Those aren't comfortable, but I don't think it will be too long term." Anton Stralman said the Bolts will miss Garrison's physical presence. "He would be a big figure in a game like this. But we put somebody else in, and we've got a deep roster and somebody else gets a chance to show their skills out there."…Stralman said it took a while to get his timing back but he was generally pleased with his performance on Thursday in his first game back after missing nine straight with an upper-body injury. "It's a little bit rusty, but overall I'm happy with how it felt."…Joel Vermin, who had two assists in his season debut on Thursday, said Lightning coaches didn't give him any special instruction before suiting up against the Blues other than to continue playing the way he was in Syracuse before being recalled. "I just came with the same mentality up here, just work hard and enjoy it," he said. "It was fun."…Brian Boyle recorded his 150th career point and 50th while with the Lightning on a third-period assist in St. Louis…Since the start of the 2014-15 season, the Lightning own more home victories (63) and have the best home points percentage (.712) of any team in the NHL. The Bolts are 6-3-1 at AMALIE Arena so far this season.