Devils at Lightning 4/12/18 - NHL Picks & Predictions
On Thursday, the New Jersey Devils (49-29-5, 21-15-2 road) will open their NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinals best of seven series on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning (54-23-3, 29-10-3 home). During the regular season, the two teams met on three occasions with the Devils sweeping the three games 5-4, 4-3 and 2-1.
Nikita Kucherov led the Lightning in goals scored during the regular season with 39, in assists with 61 and points with 100. Steven Stamkos, who was injured late in the season, should return and he was second in scoring with 86 points. In net for Tampa Bay, Andrei Vasilevskiy was 44-17-3 in 65 appearances with a goals against of 2.62 and a save percentage of .920. During the regular season, Tampa Bay was 1st in goals scored at 3.5, 13th in goals against at 2.9, 3rd in power play percentage at 23.9, and 27th in penalty kill percentage at 76.1.
Betting Trends for vs
While New Jersey was 3-0 this season against the Lightning, the Devils are just 1-4 in their last 5 visits to Tampa Bay. With Stamkos returning to center the No. 1 line look for Tampa Bay to score more often. Final Score Prediction, Tampa Bay Lightning win and cover the puck line 5-2.