Tampa Bay Lightning at Colorado Avalanche 6/15/22 - NHL Picks & Predictions

On Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the Colorado Avalanche to play Game 1 of the best of seven Stanley Cup Finals. Tampa Bay defeated the New York Rangers 4-2 in their Eastern Conference Finals best of seven series. Tampa Bay opened that series with two consecutive losses but won four straight to eliminate the Rangers. This is Tampa Bay's third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Steven Stamkos is the leading goal scorer for Tampa Bay during the postseason with nine and Ondrej Palat is a close second with eight. Nikita Kucherov is the leader in assists with 16 and Victor Hedman has 12. Kucherov is the points leader with 23 followed by Palat with 16 and Stamkos with 15. Through 17 playoff games, goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy is 12-5 with a goals-against average of 2.27 and save percentage of .928.

Colorado swept the Edmonton Oilers 4-0 to win the Western Conference Finals best of seven series. Colorado has won each of its last five playoff games and 12 of the 14 games played during the postseason. Colorado swept the Nashville Predators in the opening round of the playoffs and defeated the St. Louis Blues 4-2 in the second round before sweeping the high-scoring Oilers 4-0 in the Conference Finals.

Nathan MacKinnon is the leading goal scorer during the postseason for Colorado with 11 and Gabriel Landeskog has scored eight. Cale Makar is the leader in assists with 17, while Mikko Rantanen has 12. Makar is the points leader with 22 and MacKinnon is second with 18. Pavel Francouz took over in goal for the injured Darcy Kuemper and in six playoff appearances between the pipes is 6-0 with a goals-against average of 2.86 and save percentage of 9.06. In 10 playoff appearances, Kuemper is 6-2 with a goals-against average of 2.65 and save percentage of .897. Kuemper is active for the Finals.