Tampa Bay vs Arizona: The Lightning will pick up their first home win of the season

Tampa earned a long-awaited win, taking down Pittsburgh 5-1. Now Jon Cooper’s team will host Arizona. Will the Lightning manage to record their second win in a row? We’ll pick a few options to bet on at once.

So far, the reigning champions have only three wins under their belt. Moreover, the success in the match with Pittsburgh became for the Lightning the first obtained in regular time. In overtime, Tampa managed to defeat the weak Detroit 7-6 and unexpectedly outscored Washington 2-1, also over time. There were four defeats in the new season, including the recent 1-5 setback in Buffalo.

Tampa’s win against Pittsburgh should hardly be overestimated. The Penguins defeated Toronto 7-1 before this meeting and were drained emotionally.

The Coyotes are completely uncompetitive so far in the new season. The rebuild has hit the team from Phoenix hard. Andre Torino’s team lost all six starting games and scored only 1 point, holding on to a tie in regulation time against Buffalo.

Although the Coyotes put up some semblance of resistance against Florida in the previous game, they lost without much of a chance, 3-5. The score on shots on goal was 21-41, not in favour of Arizona. Torino’s team scored two of their three goals in the third period at 1-4, when the Panthers had already relaxed.

Tampa’s prospects for the new season are questionable, but Arizona’s are even more questionable. After the change of coach, the Coyotes have become a very weak team. Yet it was coach Rick Tocchet who was the key figure in the latest success of the Phoenix team. The Lightning have a good chance to win the upcoming game—their first home-ice win of the new season.

The prediction is a win for Tampa.

• Handicap 1 (-1.5) for 2.00;
• W1 and Total Over 4.5 for 1.82;
• Handicap 1 (-2) for 2.02.