Tampa Bay @ Los Angeles preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 10, 2018 ) Los Angeles 3, Tampa Bay 4

The NHL-best Tampa Bay Lightning look to extend their point streak to 16 contests, after finishing off a historic month, when they continue a three-game California trip against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night. The Lightning set franchise records for wins (13) and points (27) in December and are 14-0-1 in their last 15 contests after edging Anaheim 2-1 in overtime on Monday.

Nikita Kucherov (399 career points), named the NHL’s First Star for December, had 30 of his league-leading 65 points and captain Steven Stamkos added 21 last month for Tampa Bay’s high-octane offense, but the Lightning know they will need defensive efforts like the one in Anaheim to reach their goals. “If we want to play in the spring and try and go deep in the spring, you’ve got to be able to keep the puck out of the your net,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper told reporters Monday. “That was a big point for us coming into this game and this trip, is we have to do that.” The Kings had earned points in six of seven games (5-1-1) before getting outshot 48-17 and losing 2-0 at Vegas on Tuesday as Jack Campbell turned aside 46 shots to keep Los Angeles in the contest until the final minute. “We’ve had some pretty good games,” Kings coach Willie Desjardins told reporters after Tuesday’s setback. “The past 10 games, it’s not like they’ve been bad. This was a tough night. It’s a tough building to come into. We didn’t have our legs.”

TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, Sportsnet, Sportsnet360, FS Sun (Tampa Bay), FS West (Los Angeles)

ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (31-7-2): Kucherov has seven goals and 16 assists during his 11-game point streak -- recording multiple points in six consecutive contests -- while Stamkos owns 15 goals in his last 15 outings despite being blanked in the last two. “To think, especially in this era where there is a lot of tight checking and low-scoring games, to accumulate those types of points, it’s (just) what those guys do,” Cooper told reporters. Center Brayden Point, who scored the winner Monday, leads the team with 23 goals and has points in seven straight games (19 points in December).

ABOUT THE KINGS (16-22-3): Captain Anze Kopitar leads the team in points (27) after notching his 299th career goal and four assists in the last five games while fellow forward Dustin Brown had two of his team-leading 11 tallies in the last four contests. Los Angeles needs more from forwards Jeff Carter and Ilya Kovalchuk, who have been kept off the scoresheet for three and four games, respectively, while being stuck on 17 points. Jonathan Quick will likely be back in net Thursday to go for his 300th career win after going 4-1-0 with a .936 save percentage and nine goals allowed over his last five contests.

OVERTIME

1. Tampa Bay G Andrei Vasilevskiy earned his 100th career victory in his 175th game Monday and is 11 minutes from 10,000.

2. Los Angeles is 1-for-9 on the power play in the last four games and sits 25th in the league (15 percent) while Tampa Bay is first (29.2).

3. The Lightning have swept both meetings each of the last two seasons, outscoring the Kings 16-6 overall.

PREDICTION: Lightning 5, Kings 1