Martin St. Louis is set to play his 1000th career game tonight when his Tampa Bay Lightning (14-6-0) take on the Los Angeles Kings (14-6-1) at the Staples Center. This is the second of two meetings between the Bolts and Kings this season; the Lightning grabbed a convincing 5-1 victory against the Kings about one month ago.

The Lightning are looking to rebound after they suffered a disappointing 6-3 loss on Saturday night against the Phoenix Coyotes. The team’s challenge tonight is to avoid losing two contests in a row for the first time this season. For that to happen, the Bolts will need to play like they did against the Anaheim Ducks last week. It’s going to take a full team effort, timely offense, and stingy goaltending to get points from a very good Los Angeles Kings team.

For their part, the Kings head into tonight’s contest dealing with some pretty impactful injuries; Jeff Carter, Kyle Clifford, Matt Greene, and Jonathan Quick are all on the shelf. Some fans might be thinking that the Kings will be in trouble tonight without their Olympic-quality goaltender, but those people couldn’t be more wrong. Ben Scrivens, who has taken over number one duties in relief of Quick, has been simply phenomenal. The Professor is the NHL’s leader in shutouts (3), goals-against average (1.24), and save percentage (0.955). Getting pucks past him will not be easy an easy task for the Steven Stamkos-less Lightning.

To counter Scrivens, the Lightning will send out Ben Bishop. Bishop, who scared some Lightning fans when he left Saturday’s contest, is 13-2-0 on the season with a 2.11 goals-against average and 0.927 save percentage. More often than not, he has given the Lightning a chance to win. That will need to continue tonight.

As Jon Cooper continues to tinker with his lineup in an attempt to find combinations that produce consistent results, it looks as though Dmitry Korobov will suit up for his first NHL game tonight. The mammoth defender signed with the Lightning as a free agent back in 2012. Andrej Sustr is slated to sit as a healthy scratch.

For the second time this season, my two favorite teams are ready to hit the ice for what should be an entertaining game. With so much talent laden throughout both rosters, anything is possible this evening.

My apologies for the brevity of this blog. I'll try to update this post with some lineup notes once I'm home. I’ve got a lot to do prior to game time. As always, thanks for reading.

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