Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper knows just how important his team's next four games are as the dogfight for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference rages on.
The Bolts will take on the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday and Thursday, the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, and the Montreal Canadiens next Sunday in a stretch that could shake up the Atlantic Division before the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
"This is four games with our playoff destiny - you can't sit here and say right now it's in the balance - but do you want to make it a little easier on yourselves or a little harder?" Cooper said after the Bolts' 3-2 overtime loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday. "All the teams that are bunched around are staring us right in the face the next four games."
He added, "We put ourselves in a decent position in the first third of the year, and that's why you do that. Because when times get tough, we had a little bulge in the standings. Now we don't anymore. So now it's a race for the last 30 games here, and our urgency level is going to have to be higher than ever."
The Lightning still hold the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, but the Atlantic is incredibly crowded entering Sunday's action.
| Rank | Team | GP | Record | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida Panthers | 53 | 31-19-3 | 65 |
| 2 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 52 | 31-19-2 | 64 |
| 3 | Ottawa Senators | 52 | 28-20-4 | 60 |
| 4 | Tampa Bay Lightning (WC2) | 51 | 27-20-4 | 58 |
| 5 | Boston Bruins | 54 | 26-22-6 | 58 |
| 6 | Detroit Red Wings | 52 | 26-21-5 | 57 |
| 7 | Montreal Canadiens | 51 | 24-22-5 | 53 |
| 8 | Buffalo Sabres | 51 | 20-26-5 | 45 |
Lightning forward Jake Guentzel is aware of the stakes and likened the upcoming dates with the Senators to a "two-game playoff series."
"That's gonna be huge," he said.
Tampa Bay was third in its division after going 18-10-2 through its first 30 games. Its been tough sledding for the perennial playoff contenders as of late, though, as they're 7-8-2 over the past month.
Scoring struggles are a major contributor to the Lightning's recent slump. The Bolts led the league in goals per game (3.94) before the calendar flipped to 2025 but rank 26th in that same category (2.47) since the beginning of January.
"There was a long period of time we were probably scoring over expected," Cooper reasoned. "Now we're most definitely scoring less than expected, but we're not giving up a ton. ... Some of these we've let slip out because we haven't been able to score, but you can't just keep getting chances, chances, chances, and they're not going to go in.
"The tide will change. It's just testing your will and your patience."
The puck drops on the Lightning's first clash with Ottawa at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
