Overview
- Both teams halted skids in their last outings, with New Jersey beating Ottawa 4-3 on Cody Glass’s late winner and Tampa Bay routing Montreal 6-1 behind a Darren Raddysh brace.
- Tampa Bay has leaned on Jonas Johansson in Andrei Vasilevskiy’s absence, and he has stopped 66 of 69 shots over his last three appearances after a 26-save outing Tuesday.
- Lightning captain Victor Hedman exited after the first period Tuesday with an undisclosed issue and is being re-evaluated, coach Jon Cooper said.
- New Jersey’s depth drove Tuesday’s win as the Glass–Arseny Gritsyuk–Connor Brown line combined for eight points, with the Devils still short-handed after 157 man-games lost including Jack Hughes and Brett Pesce.
- The season series is tied 1-1 (Devils 5-3 on Oct. 11; Lightning 5-1 on Nov. 18), with puck drop at 7 p.m. ET at Prudential Center, where the Devils are 9-4-1.