Tampa Bay Lightning V Minnesota Wild
National Hocket League
Feb 27,2008 - 7:00 pm EST

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Tampa Bay (25-30-7)

Yesterday was a busy day in Tampa although the team didn’t play the game. In last 2 days of trade deadline Tampa Bay was very active in transfer market:

-(LW) Vaclav Prospal (29 goals,28 assists),teams second scorer was traded to Philadelphia for young (D) Alexander Picard and 2009 conditional draft pick.

-(C) Brad Richards (18 goals,33 assists) and (G) Johan Holmqvist were traded to Dallas Stars for (G) Mike Smith,(C) Jeff Halpem(10 goals, 14 assists) and (LW) Jussi Jokinen(14 goals, 14 assists)

-(LW) Jan Hlavac (9 goals, 13 assists) was traded to Nashville for seventh round draft pick this year.

Lightning coach John Tortorella will need to make big changes in his team. He will have to find someone to play with (C) Vincent Lecavalier and (RW) Martin St.Louis in first line, 2 out of 3 player from second line are traded too. Although he was in bad form (G) Johan Holmqvist was first choice for goalkeeper position.

Defenseman Brad Lukovich underwent successful sports hernia surgery and is expected to miss three to four weeks. (C) Ryan Craig and (C) Tim Taylor are on injured reserve.

Minnesota (34-23-5)

Minnesota’s general manager Doug Risebrough didn’t have much of a job yesterday. Wild only got Chris Simon from NY Islanders who spent most of this season serving NHL-record 30-game suspension for intentionally stomping on the leg of Pittsburgh’s Jarko Ruutu.

It seems that either Minnesota didn’t find the right players to improve their squad or they think that with this roster they can get in playoffs and compete with top teams.

The Wild are 4-6-0 since Feb. 2, with their wins coming in overtime or a shootout.Minessota is on 3 game losing streak (in this preview I didn’t include Minnesota’s game @ Washington that is played last night) with some offensive problems.

STATS COMPARISON

Tampa Bay home 15-15-2 *** Minnesota away 16-13-2

Current form (last 5 games
Tampa Bay W-L-OTL-L-L *** Minnesota W-W-OTL-L-L

GFA
Tampa Bay 2.80 (11th) *** Minnesota 2.66 (16th)

GAA
Tampa Bay 3.23(29th) *** Minnesota 2.63 (11th)

Power Play (%)
Tampa Bay 18.1 (13th)*** Minnesota 18.5 (10th)

Penalty Kill (%)
Tampa Bay 80.4(25th) *** Minnesota 84.5 (7th)
H2H
Last game between these two teams was played on Jan 4, 2007 and Tampa Bay won 3-2.

THE VERDICT

The big changes in Tampa Bay players will definately have big impact on their play as well. They lost two good forwards and starting goalkepeer. Young (G) Karri Ramo will probably start for Tampa Bay but the bigest problem for this team is that all offense will come from Lecavalier and St.Louis.

If Minnesota manage to stop this two players they will win.

PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE :

Tampa Bay 35% - Draw 26% - Minnesota 39%

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Minnesota on ML