Tampa Bay Lightning at Boston Bruins - 8/29/20 NHL Picks and Prediction

Ondrej Palat and Yanni Gourde staked the Bolts an early 2-0 lead with a pair of goals :15 apart with just over seven minutes to go in the opening period. Mikhail Sergachev made it 3-0 Tampa just over two minutes into the second period before Brad Marchand got the Bruins on the board just before the five-minute mark of the second. The wheels would fall off after that though, as Alex Killorn restored Tampa’s three-goal cushion just 3:39 later. Brayden Point would push it to 5-1 and Killorn would add his 2nd goal of the game just 2:38 later to make it a 6-1 game before Nikita Kucherov added a 7th goal to put the cherry on top for Tampa Bay less than four minutes into the 3rd period.

Andrei Vasilevskiy got the win in goal for Tampa Bay after stopping 23 of 24 shots in the winning effort to improve to 8-3 this postseason while Jaroslav Halak took the loss after allowing four goals on 16 shots before being pulled in the second period for the Bruins.

Tampa Bay is 48-12 in their last 60 games against the rest of the Atlantic division and 22-5 in their last 27 conference semi-final games while the under is 5-2 in their last 7 games against a team with a winning record. Boston is 21-10 in their last 31 games overall and 6-2 in their last 8 playoff games as an underdog while the under is 10-3-1 in their last 14 games against the rest of the Atlantic division. Tampa Bay is 13-3 in the last 16 meetings between these two teams.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a veteran group like Boston respond here after a humiliating look at the end of game three, and a lot of these guys are too proud to not have a response in game four. However, I think Tampa Bay are prepared for this response, and I like Andrei Vasilevskiy between the pipes more than I do Jaroslav Halak who was clearly shaken up and rattled after being shelled in game three. I’ll take the Lightning to win this one in what should be a closer game than game three to put the Bruins on the brink of elimination.