The Tampa Bay Lightning thumped the Colorado Avalanche 6-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday to improve to 14-1 in their past 15 home playoff games, yet the Bolts are slight underdogs for Game 4 back at Amalie Arena in Tampa tonight.'Bettors are backing them at Caesars Sportsbooks, however, and absolutely crushing over 6.0 goals.
Let's get to the key injury/goaltending news first. Lightning forward Brayden Point, a huge part of the team' s power-play unit, will miss a second straight game with an undisclosed injury. Tampa Bay is 0-2 with him and 1-0 without in this series, but that's a fluke. Corey Perry largely replaced him on the top power-play unit in Game 3 and scored a goal. Riley Nash entered the lineup in Point's spot, and that adjustment should carry over to tonight.
Tampa Bay's best all-around forward, Nikita Kucherov, had two assists in Game 3 but left late with a lower-body injury; he is fully expected to play. Kucherov now has 44 multi-point playoff games in his future Hall of Fame career, by far the most in franchise history and tied with Mike Bossy and Gordie Howe for 19th-most in history. Kucherov's seven career multi-point games in the Stanley Cup Final are most of any active player.
Avalanche forward Andre Burakovsky, excellent in the first two games, missed Game 3 and won't play in Game 4. He's not even in Tampa. Fellow top-six forward Nazem Kadri, who hasn 't played since Game 3 of the West Final due to injury, did skate this morning and is expected to return. That's huge for Colorado. Kadri is coming off a career-best 87-point regular season and had six goals and 14 points in 13 postseason games before being hurt.