After Milton postponed home opener, Lightning face winless Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks open a four-game road trip at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night in search of their first win of the season.

The Canucks dropped back-to-back games on home ice last week to start the season. Vancouver squandered a 4-1 lead and fell 6-5 in overtime against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday, and followed it up with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.

“We lose two games in overtime, so we’ve got to be careful. Can we play better? Yeah. Could we do better coverage-wise in certain (areas)? Yeah, but that’s because of some new, unfamiliar players, and I’m not blaming them,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “Some guys haven’t played a lot of games. There’s just some coverage things that we’ve got to iron out.”

Forward Brock Boeser has two goals through two games, while captain Quinn Hughes has a pair of assists.

The two Canucks goaltenders have split the first two games this season. First was Arturs Silovs, who gave up all six goals against Calgary for a 5.94 goals-against average with a .769 save percentage.

Kevin Lankinen allowed two goals before the shootout against Philadelphia and posted a .935 save percentage. Lankinen has five career appearances against the Lightning and is 0-3-1 with a 4.37 GAA and an .872 save percentage.

Vancouver and Tampa Bay split the season series last season, with the Lightning winning 4-3 on Oct. 19 and the Canucks earning the split in a 4-1 win on Dec. 12.

Tampa Bay returns to action after having its Saturday home game against the Carolina Hurricanes postponed due to Hurricane Milton.

On Friday, the Lightning opened the season with a 4-1 win over the Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C. Forward Nikita Kucherov, last season’s Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s leading scorer, had a natural hat trick in the third period and added an assist in the win.

“It was a great first step against Carolina, but you watch the tape again, and it’s like, ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do,'” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Our gamesmanship, our battle and our compete was really high. I loved the way we closed out the third (but) we’ve got to put ourselves in a bit better position to win these games moving forward.

“We’ll take our two points and keep pushing forward here this week.”

Tampa Bay captain Victor Hedman had three assists, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves in the win.

Jake Guentzel, who signed a seven-year contract with the Bolts in free agency over the summer, added two assists in his Lightning debut.

“There’s a lot of really good things that came out of that game that we did well — obviously some things that we still got to tighten up,” forward Anthony Cirelli said. “A little bit too many odd-man rushes that were given up there — little things that I think we just have to focus on a little bit more and be ready for the next game.”

Tuesday is the first of two meetings between the Canucks and Lightning. The two teams conclude the season series on Dec. 8 in Vancouver.

–Field Level Media