Tampa Bay at Minnesota

Ilya Mikheyev scored twice Thursday as Tampa Bay beat Chicago 4-1 to improve to 8-0 at home. The Lightning have earned points in eight of their last nine games and are 6-1-2 over that stretch. Away from home, they are 2-3-2, and Minnesota has the better record, 12-3-3 to Tampa Bay's 10-3-2, a points percentage of .750 against .733. The Wild's three-game winning streak came against Washington, Philadelphia and San Jose, and the last two of those clubs are 4-9-4 and 7-10-1. Tampa Bay outshot Chicago 35-25 on Thursday, and a club that controls the shot count against a team in front of it keeps its road points coming at this price. The total points are the same way. Minnesota has allowed 39 goals in 18 games, 2.2 per game, and none of its last three opponents scored more than two. Those games finished 5-1, 4-2, and 4-1. Tampa Bay's last two ended 4-2 and 4-1. Tampa Bay's two games before that, a 6-4 win over Winnipeg and a 5-4 shootout loss at Nashville, ran to ten and nine goals. Both came against clubs with weaker defensive résumés than the Wild's, and Minnesota has held its last three opponents to a combined four goals. The Wild have not let a game open up on them since that stretch began, and that is the form Tampa Bay walks into tonight. I'm on Tampa Bay on the moneyline and the UNDER tonight.