Vancouver @ Tampa Bay preview

Last Meeting ( Dec 18, 2018 ) Tampa Bay 5, Vancouver 2

One team has been expected to put together a run like this all season and the other is a bit of a surprise, but the visiting Vancouver Canucks and the Tampa Bay Lightning meet Tuesday night with an eighth straight victory on the line. The reigning Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning boast 29 goals during their seven-game streak and the Canucks have scored 30 combined in their run after missing the playoffs the last four seasons.

Vancouver has not won eight straight games since 2010-11 - the season they made it to the Stanley Cup Final and last won a playoff round - and gave itself a chance by scoring seven goals Thursday in a win over Chicago before edging the New York Rangers 2-1 on Saturday. “You can tell we’re a team that’s still building, still learning. But you can tell it’s also getting a lot better as the year has gone on,” Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers told Sportsnet. “. … What I like from our group, as of late, is when we’re not having our best stretch for five or 10 minutes. … we’re reversing it and getting back to our game. At the start of the year, we had a lot of trouble with that.” The Lightning were plodding along outside playoff position for about two months before beginning their winning streak just before Christmas and extending it with an impressive road back-to-back that ended with a 3-1 victory at Carolina on Sunday. “We’ve been playing really well and we would walk away with one point or no points, or we would make two mistakes in the game and both of them would wind up in the net,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper told reporters. “We knew if we kept playing that way, we would eventually get rewarded, and now we are.”

TIME: 7 p.m. ET. TV: FS Sun, Sportsnet Pacific

ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (24-13-4): Nikita Kucherov set up a pair of goals Sunday to give him five of his team-high 45 points in the last four games and the right wing has scored twice with four assists in his past four meetings with the Canucks. Center Brayden Point recorded his team-leading 17th goal - the third in five games - against Carolina and captain Steven Stamkos tied Alex Killorn for second with his 16th on Sunday. Tampa Bay killed 16-of-17 power plays in its last five games, including 4-of-4 on Sunday, and Stamkos told reporters of that effort: “Guys were blocking shots. We’ve seen a lot more guys step up that department, and that’s part of a winning culture.”

ABOUT THE CANUCKS (23-15-4): Last season’s Calder Trophy winner Elias Pettersson has a team-high 44 points but has been held off the scoresheet in three of the past five contests - including Saturday’s win. Forward J.T. Miller, who had 65 points in 94 games with Tampa Bay before being traded to Vancouver last June, is off to a strong start with his new team by registering 15 goals and 25 assists in 42 contests. Captain Bo Horvat posted seven of his 35 points in the last three games (two goals) and fellow forward Brock Boeser boasts 15 of his 39 points in the past 15 outings (three goals).

OVERTIME

1. Tampa Bay D Victor Hedman is tied for second on the team with 39 points with Stamkos and owns a plus-11 rating over the past seven games.

2. Vancouver Quinn Hughes had an assist Saturday and became the fastest rookie defenseman in franchise history to reach 30 points (41 games).

3. Canucks G Jacob Markstrom has won six straight with a .932 save percentage while Lightning G Andrei Vasilevskiy has a .935 SP during his five-game winning streak.

PREDICTION: Lightning 4, Canucks 2