Face-off: 1900 ET, 01/03/2022
Arena: Amalie Arena
Tampa Bay lead Ottawa 2-1 in this season’s meetings and look worthy favourites to increase that advantage at Amalie Arena on current form.
The back-to-back Stanley Cup victors are on a four-match winning run and sit 31 points clear of the Senators in the Atlantic Division table.
There haven’t been many wide-margin victories of late, though, so 6.0 for a home success by exactly two goals kicks off our Tampa Bay Lightning vs Ottawa Senators predictions.
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Tampa Bay Lightning Odds
Tampa Bay are 7-1-1 from their last nine outings after beating Nashville 3-2 in Saturday’s NHL Stadium Series showdown.
The Bolts Nation provided a large contingent of the 68,000 crowd at Nissan Stadium in Tennessee and saw their team come from behind to prevail.
Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos hit the target to keep the Lightning in a three-way title race with Florida and Toronto.
“Absolutely incredible – just such a cool atmosphere,” beamed Point. “The crowd was rocking for both sides. There was a lot of noise for both teams.
“We want to thank all the Tampa fans that came out. We had a great showing. The boys really appreciated it.”
Yet another full house will welcome Tampa back to home ice and, with Point and Kucherov now firing following injury problems this term, everything is in place for the wins to keep coming.
Looking at the NHL odds for this contest, 2.9 for a Lightning victory in regular time and both sides to score at least twice takes the eye.
That bet would have paid out in all of the past four fixtures!
Ottawa Senators Odds
Ottawa are 22 points off a wild card spot and probably just playing for pride from here on, but that hasn’t stopped them from giving everything.
Despite going down 2-1 to resurgent Montreal on Saturday, the Senators are a respectable 5-5-1 since the All-Star break.
Andrew Hammond returned to haunt his former club with 26 saves, as the Canadiens claimed a fifth consecutive triumph.
One plus point from that hard-fought match, though, was Colin White scoring on his seasonal debut after recovering from a shoulder injury.
However, being without defensemen Thomas Chabot and Nikita Zaitsev due to illness may have proved crucial.
“Ultimately, you’re missing Chabot with those power plays,” said coach DJ Smith. “There were a lot of things that were good, but offensively we just weren’t very good.”
Ottawa will play with heart again here, but whether they have the class to match their hosts is questionable.
Let’s add 15.5 for a 4-2 home win to our Tampa Bay Lightning vs Ottawa Senators predictions.
Additional stats
Last result:
Nashville 2-3 TAMPA BAY
OTTAWA 1-2 Montreal
Season head-to-head: Tampa Bay 2-1 Ottawa, Ottawa 4-0 Tampa Bay, Ottawa 3-5 Tampa Bay
