Ottawa @ Tampa Bay preview

Last Meeting ( Oct 12, 2019 ) Tampa Bay 2, Ottawa 4

The Tampa Bay Lightning have already matched the amount of regulation losses they had at home last season and look to start taking full advantage of a stretch at Amalie Arena when they host the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night. The Lightning dropped to 8-7-1 at home with a 5-2 loss to NHL-best Washington on Saturday, again falling victim to a few mistakes that they could not recover from.

“It’s too bad. We left points out there tonight,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper told reporters after the loss. “For 40 minutes, we left a lot of plays out there. We played the way we wanted to play. I thought we dictated a lot of the game. It was unfortunate we only had one (goal), but we didn’t feel we were giving up a whole lot.” The good news for the Lightning is that reigning Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov is only day-to-day after taking a shot off his foot Saturday and leaving the game while fellow forward Tyler Johnson is close to returning from a lower-body injury that caused him to miss the last three contests. Ottawa will come to Tampa a little angry after being pounded 6-1 at Florida on Monday, following a promising stretch when it earned points in four of five contests (3-1-1). Senators left wing Anthony Duclair was cooled off by the Panthers (two shots, minus-2 rating) after recording eight goals along with two assists in the first six games of December, and did not make the scoresheet in Ottawa’s 4-2 victory over the Lightning on Oct. 12.

TV: 7 p.m. ET, RDS, TSN5 (Ottawa), FS Sun (Tampa Bay)

ABOUT THE SENATORS (14-18-2): Veteran center Artem Anisimov scored the only goal for Ottawa on Monday - his third in six games - while forwards Logan Brown and Tyler Ennis added assists. Duclair leads the team with 25 points - one more than fellow forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who is still among the league leaders with a plus-18 rating despite being a minus-2 in Monday’s setback. Anders Nilsson (9-9-2) allowed six goals while staying in the whole game against Florida and may sit out in the second of the back-to-back in favor of rookie Marcus Hogberg or perhaps veteran Craig Anderson (5-8-0), who has been out a little more than a week with a knee injury.

ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (16-12-3): Center Brayden Point scored in each of the past two games to pull within one of captain Steven Stamkos (13) for the team lead while Kucherov tops the club with 34 points. Left wing Alex Killorn is fourth on the team with 26 points, with 10 (four goals) coming in his last seven games, and defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk continues his revival season with 22 points (28 in 73 games with the New York Rangers last season) along with a team-best plus-10 rating. Andrei Vasilevskiy (13-9-1) saw his three-game winning streak come to an end Saturday and has not been dominant against Ottawa (6-5-0, .896 save percentage) in his career.

OVERTIME

1. Ottawa C Chris Tierney (four goals, 17 points) is slated to play his 400th NHL contest Tuesday.

2. Kucherov needs two goals to reach 200 in his career and remains two points shy of 300.

3. The Senators have allowed seven power-play goals in the past nine games after giving up one Monday.

PREDICTION: Lightning 5, Senators 2