Western Canada trip provides another challenge for Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning passed one test on Thursday when they defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs, the second place team in the NHL standings behind the Bolts, 4-1 at AMALIE Arena despite not playing their best hockey.
They have Andrei Vasilevskiy and his healed left foot to thank for that.
The Lightning will face another stiff challenge this coming week when they travel through Western Canada for their final four games before the Christmas break.

The Bolts start the always-difficult Western Canada swing Sunday in Winnipeg, travel across the Rocky Mountains to play Vancouver on Tuesday, come back a bit east to take on Calgary Thursday and then close the trip with a date against Edmonton Saturday.

In all, the Lightning will fly 5,789 miles and play in three different time zones.
"It's tough to go into those buildings and win," Lightning forward Yanni Gourde said.
What will make this Western Canada trip even more difficult than most is all four teams the Lightning face are playing pretty good hockey. Of the four, three are in a playoff position and the fourth, Vancouver, is only five points back of a wild card.
Winnipeg, the first opponent on the trip, is tied for second in the Western Conference standings and is 8-2-0 over its last 10 games. Vancouver handed the Lightning a 4-1 loss in the second game of the season after scoring four goals in the third period to overcome a 1-0 deficit and stun the Bolts in front of their home crowd.
Calgary might be the hottest team in the NHL not named Tampa Bay right now having worked its way to the top of the Pacific Division standings and tied for second overall in the Western Conference. And Edmonton, after an uninspiring start to the season, has experienced a rebirth under new head coach Ken Hitchcock. The Oilers are only five points back of Calgary in the Pacific Division and are currently in the first wild card spot.
"It's definitely not going to get any easier," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "Hard to predict where teams are going to be in the standings, but as the season's gone along here, basically a third of the way through, there's some teams that have separated themselves. Toronto's one. Winnipeg's another. Calgary and Edmonton and Vancouver are probably playing their best hockey of the year. Most definitely a test. We passed the test last night in the sense we won the game, but we know we've got more in the tank than what we showed last night. We're definitely going to need it 48 hours from now (against Winnipeg)."
The Lightning should get some help on the trip in the form of additional healthy bodies. Defenseman Anton Stralman, who has missed the last 17 games with an upper-body ailment that has nagged him for over a month now, should return at some point on the trip according to Cooper. Forward Mathieu Joseph, who was a surprise scratch from the Toronto game with a lower-body injury and is considered day-to-day, will also make the trip and is hopeful to rejoin the lineup for one of the four games, although he likely won't play in the road trip opener.

"Extremely doubtful for Sunday just because he's not been skating right now," Cooper said. "We'll just have to take it game by game."
The Lightning have proven they can win with key players sidelined to injury. They've proven they can win games with great goaltending or through special teams play, by overwhelming teams with their offensive prowess or smothering teams with a shut-down defensive effort. The Bolts can rally from multiple goal deficits or blitz teams from the start and play prevent defense to coast to victory.
Now, they'll have a chance to show they can win a long way away from home against four quality teams they don't see often.
"It's for sure going to be a good test for us," Anthony Cirelli said. "They're four really good teams that we're going to be up against and all at or near the top of the West. I think we're excited for the challenge and we're going to be ready to go."