"It's always a very battle up-type game when we play Boston," said Lightning forward Ryan Callahan, who will start his third-consecutive game as Yanni Gourde serves the final game of his two-game suspension tonight. "Our last game was physical. A lot of emotion in the game. You can always expect that against a divisional opponent, especially playing them last year in the playoffs. Expect more of the same of that."
Boston ended Tampa Bay's franchise record 10-game win streak the last time the two teams played February 28 at TD Garden, the Bruins controlling play and scoring a flurry of goals in the third period to turn a tight, 1-0 contest into a runaway. The Bruins beat the Bolts 4-1 and sent a message they would again be a formidable foe should the two teams face off again in the postseason.
"It's hard to compare the two teams in two years, us, them," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "Their core is the same. They've got the same group. They've got the same core. Like us, our young guys have grown, their young guys have grown. So it was DeBrusk had the impact he had last year, he's got more or an impact this year. We've got guys like Cirelli that have had more of an impact. The core guys are still doing what they do for the team. The goaltending is the same, but I just think some of these younger players on each team have gotten better. In that regard, the teams are better."
The Lightning play five of their remaining six regular season games against teams currently in a playoff position. And all five of those games come against teams they could see in the postseason. Besides the two games remaining against Boston, the Bolts will host Washington in the final home game of the regular season, travel to Montreal to take on a Canadiens team the Lightning could open the playoffs against and take on Toronto, a potential second round opponent, at Scotiabank Arena. So while the Lightning might not have much to play for in the regular season, their motivation should be high knowing they could see any or all of these teams in the postseason.
"What's impressed me about this group, we've kind of known we were destined for the playoffs for a little while now but when you clinch what we've done whether it was our division or the Presidents' Trophy, the guys have kept going, they haven't taken their foot off the gas, they're still trying to get better," Cooper said. "We didn't win the game in St. Louis, but we did everything in our power to win the game. When you're down 3-0 early on the road and the end of a trip, it could have been easy to just mail that one in. But they did just the opposite. If it wasn't for a couple posts and an offside, that game may have turned out differently. So I just like the fact that the guys are competing hard down the stretch here."
