Nashville at Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay will be without goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy for at least two months as he recovers from surgery to repair a herniated disc in his lower back. Jonas Johansson will be starting in his place. Johansson signed as a free agent after appearing in three games for Colorado in 2022-23, and he stopped 67 shots in shutouts against Carolina and Florida in preseason. The Lightning lost some of their depth due to salary-cap restrictions, but they still have their top three scorers in Nikita Kucherov (30 goals, 83 assists), Brayden Point (51 goals) and Steven Stamkos (34 goals, 50 assists). Nashville has a new coach in Andrew Brunette and a younger team especially on offense as Cody Glass, 24, Tommy Novak, 26, and Juuso Parssinen, 22, will be looked upon to contribute, with Matt Duchene, last year's leading scorer, departing for Dallas is free agency. Juuse Saros appeared to be on the decline the second half of last season and the Predators will depend more on backup goalie Kevin Lankinen. Tampa Bay has won eight of 10 meetings, including the last four, and it has won 114 of 166 home games. Take the Lightning.