The spotlight will be on one of the league’s leading scorer when he makes his return to his hometown Tuesday night to face the team he grew up cheering for. Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning travel to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto for a clash with the Maple Leafs, and its under rare circumstances for the 20-year old Markham, Ontario-native. Stamkos has not scored in consecutive games, and will be looking to avoid extending that goalless drought to three games for the first time this NHL standings season against his former favorite team.
Stamkos has scored 21 goals and registered 18 assists in 24 games this online sports betting season. The first overall pick in the 2008 draft fell out of the league lead in scoring after a sore weekend, but will have his family and friends in the stands to cheer him on as he gets back on track. He led the way with six goals and four assists during a five-game winning streak, but registered just a single assist in consecutive losses to a pair of division rivals on the weekend, as Tampa Bay was blanked 6-0 by the Washington Capitals before falling to the Florida Panthers 4-3 in a shootout.
The last time the Lightning played the Maple Leafs, they prevailed 4-0 in Toronto, and it was Stamkos that had a big NHL betting game for Tampa Bay. The Lightning’s franchise player scored twice in that victory, and has six goals and seven assists in nine career games against the buds. That number becomes even more impressive when sectioned on games played at the Air Canada Centre, where he has four points in four games. Tampa Bay hasn’t lost in regulation at Toronto in its last five meetings, going 3-0-2 over that span, and have lost just once in their last 12 meetings overall.
While the spotlight will be on the play of Stamkos, the hometown team will need some scoring of its own. The Maple Leafs have the third-worst goal total in the league with 48, and were shutout for the second time in four games on Saturday, a 3-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators. Toronto has been better at home of late, with 12 goals in three straight wins, and have been scoring on the powerplay as well with a completion percentage of 50-percent. They’ll have plenty of opportunities to continue to improve their hockey betting home record over the next week, with three straight at home beginning Tuesday night against the Lightning. All the talk in the Toronto dressing room has been about rookie center Nazem Kadri, who is set to center the team’s top line in between forwards Phil Kessel and Clarke MacArthur. MacArthur is among a handful of struggling Maple Leafs’ forwards, having gone scoreless in his last 11 games after opening the season with seven goals through his first 11.
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