Tampa Bay Lightning play host to the Washington Capitals in their sixth and final meeting this season
The first game of Monday will be hosted by the Tampa Bay Lightning as they play host to the Washington Capitals at the St. Pete Times Forum.
This will be the sixth and final meeting between the two sides. The Capitals lead the series between the two teams 3-2.
The most recent meeting the two sides was won by the Capitals comfortably 5-2 with Captain Alex Ovechkin bagging the winning goal of the game.
The game provides the first place in the Southeastern Division on stake. The Capitals are currently in the lead as they won the game against the Florida Panthers 3-2 in overtime this past Sunday.
The Capitals have come up with brilliant display of ice hockey bagging in some in some important wins.
They have won four games in row and are in a good shape to notch the fifth one this time out.
Capitals have not only shown that they can win game but they have combined very well as a unit.
The encouraging thing about their game play is the fact that they are getting contributions from every player with the Captain leading the pack very well.
"Hopefully this winning streak can give us the confidence we need for the upcoming games," center Nicklas Backstrom said. "We're looking forward now and we have to be focused, especially since we have to play tomorrow in Tampa."
The Capitals have played 66 games during the course of the season so far out of which they have managed to come up with 36 regulation time wins, ten overtime wins scoring a total of 82 points.
On the other hand, the Lightning have played 65 games during the season out of which they have won 37 games in regulation time, seven games in overtime to score a total of 81 points.
The Lightning was in the Southeastern Division lead for most of the season but their recent form has been very disappointing.
Not only has their defence and offence deteriorated, but they have lost their last three consecutive games.
Even shocking thing is that they have only scored four goals during this time. Their form has considerably fallen from the early part of the season and they are no way near the team that defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 8-7 earlier in the season.
The last game that they played this past Saturday saw the Lightning coming up with a good start and leading against the Montreal Canadiens. However, they failed to capitalise as the game ended with them losing the game 4-2 in the end.
"You battle a lot of adversity throughout the year and right now we're in the middle of it," Lightning forward Martin St. Louis said. "We've been facing adversity all year. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy. We've been grinding it out all year."
The game will be very entertaining and exciting with the lead at stake and would have a lot of quality on offer given the amount of talent present on both rosters.
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