Lightning face Hurricanes in battle of trade-deadline sellers

Link copied!

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes have difficult paths to stay in contention for a wild card, made tougher still by moves ahead of the trade deadline.

Tampa Bay traded away its top goalie, Ben Bishop, and a key forward, Brian Boyle, with the potential for more moves before Wednesday's 3 p.m. EST deadline.

Carolina also finds itself short-handed, having dealt away defenseman Ron Hainsey last week and then forward Viktor Stalberg on Tuesday, with injuries only adding to the new depth issues.

"Everybody understands it's part of the season," Lightning star Nikita Kucherov said after his hat trick led Tampa Bay to a 5-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Monday night. "We have to continue playing our game. Our goal is just to play hockey. ... Every game is huge. We need those points."

Indeed, the Lightning are 6-2-2 in their past 10, so they are only five points out of the last wild card with 21 games to play. Tampa Bay (28-25-8) closes out a four-game homestand Wednesday against Carolina, which lost 3-2 in a shootout at the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night to open a back-to-back.

Carolina's depth concerns grew worse when leading scorer Jeff Skinner (20 goals, 20 assists) was sent back to Raleigh before the game to check on an upper-body injury. Then after one period Tuesday, the Hurricanes (25-25-9) lost forward Brock McGinn to an upper-body injury, which meant using defenseman Matt Tennyson as a forward while rotating three lines.

"It's not a perfect scenario," Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said after the game. "You're down to 10, we're using Tenny as a winger. But the guys did a good job. Rolling three lines, you can do it, but it started to show at the end."

Cam Ward made 29 saves Tuesday for Carolina, which got goals from Lee Stempniak and Sebastian Aho.

Tampa Bay needs to take advantage of "four-point" games such as Wednesday, with a chance to gain ground in the standings and keep a challenger from doing the same.

The teams' strengths will go head-to-head on Wednesday, as the Lightning power play, which ranks second in the NHL, will try to continue its strong play without one of its key leaders, Boyle. Carolina has the NHL's No. 1 penalty kill unit, stopping 86.5 percent of opponent's power plays, but the Hurricanes won't be at full strength on that unit either, with transactions expected to shore up depth for the Lightning game.

Just as Carolina is wrapping up a home-and-home, the Lightning must get ready for one, as they go on the road for games Friday and Saturday at the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, two more Eastern Conference playoff hopefuls.

Carolina is 1-5-2 in its past eight games, with a home-and-home against the Arizona Coyotes following the Lightning game, in Raleigh on Friday and Phoenix on Sunday. The Hurricanes have games in hand against the rest of the Eastern wild-card hopefuls, but they must push through their new losses to remain in anything more than mathematical contention for much longer.