Pittsburgh vs Tampa Bay Prediction: Both Teams are Eager to Score

Prediction for the NHL-1 match between Pittsburgh Penguins vs Tampa Bay Lightning, which will take place on November 20th. Who will turn out to be stronger? Check the teams' conditions! Several betting options are available.

Pittsburgh is having a bit of a mixed run in the league. In the last five games, the Penguins beat Washington 4-2 but then failed three games in a row: 1-7 to Dallas, 2-3 (OT) to Detroit, and 2-6 to Columbus. On a positive note, the Penguins managed to outplay San Jose (3-2 after a shootout). So, Pittsburgh is still battling to secure a spot in the playoff zone. Right now, they're in 13th place in the East with 17 points.

Thanks to Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay still can make the playoffs. The Russian forward is among the top 10 scorers with 26 points, including 11 goals and 15 assists. Regarding the team's position in the Eastern Conference standings, they can settle for seventh place, one point ahead of the ninth Islanders. It's also worth mentioning that the Lightning is having some conditioning issues. In the last five games, they only managed to win twice – 4-1 over Winnipeg and 4-0 over New Jersey.

Both Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay have been playing less convincingly recently. Yes, Tampa did better in the last two games – they defeated Winnipeg and New Jersey. But these games were at the arena in Tampa. The Lightning have been struggling on the road recently, with three losses in a row. Given all this, we think it's a good idea to bet on performance, especially since the teams have only met once before this year. At that time, they reached the total over (8.5). We don't think the usual TO will be an issue in this game.