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Lightning pregame: Tampa Bay as fresh as it can be in second half of back-to-back

Lightning limited ice time with big lead over New Jersey, putting the team in a good position for Tuesday's game against Detroit
 
Published Dec. 4, 2018|Updated Dec. 4, 2018

DETROIT — The Lightning's win over New Jersey on Monday night was a best-case scenario to set the team up for the second half of its back-to-back, Tuesday in Detroit.

There's never really a good situation when a team gets to the city at 2 a.m. the day of the game, but, given that, this is pretty ideal.

Coach Jon Cooper was able to keep everyone's ice time down in Monday's win over New Jersey, after the Lightning took a big lead early. So, the Lightning is about as fresh as it can be.

D Victor Hedman played the most on Monday with 23:34 (seven minutes of that being on the power play and penalty kill). He was the only player north of 20 minutes; in the Lightning's last regulation game (Thursday against Buffalo), six players passed that mark. D Ryan McDonagh's 18:44 is especially low for him; he often is among the team's highest ice time.

C Yanni Gourde, who plays on both the power play and penalty kill, was the only forward to play more than 16 minutes, a sign that the Lightning was able to consistently roll all four lines and play everyone relatively evenly.

Detroit updates

In case you missed it yesterday, Red Wings forward Tyler Bertuzzi was suspended two games for punching Colorado's Matt Calvert from the bench. More on that here.

Also, the Red Wings reported Monday morning that Anthony Mantha will be out four to six weeks with a hand injury. He has 14 points (nine goals, five assists) in 27 games.

How to watch

Tuesday night's game will be broadcast on Fox Sports Sun alternate channel on some providers.

That means DISH channel 443, Dish Hopper channel 412-31, DirectTV channel 653 and AT&T channel 723.