The Tampa Bay Lightning will travel to Washington, D.C., to face the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena. The game will start at 5:30 PM ET on Saturday evening and air on Bally Sports Sun and Monumental Sports Network.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have already locked in a spot in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, which is their 7^th consecutive season of making the playoffs, and are likely locked in as the first Wild Card team as they enter this game with a record of 44-27-8 and 96 points which puts them five points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic Division with only three games left to play in the regular season. 

The Lightning are only .500 in April following a 2-3 shootout loss against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. Nikita Kucherov will likely win the 2024 Art Ross Trophy as he enters this game with 141 points and leads Nathan MacKinnon by four points. This will be the 2^nd time in Kucherov’s career that he has won the Art Ross Trophy and his first since the 2019 Art Ross Trophy. This will be the 3^rd meeting in the regular season that Tampa Bay will face Washington, with the teams splitting the two contests and the Capitals winning the most recent meeting in February by a score of 5-3. 

The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to take the 2-1 regular season series lead when they travel to face the Washington Capitals.

The Washington Capitals are in desperate need of a win if they are going to make the playoffs as they enter this game tailing the Pittsburgh Penguins by a point for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference as they enter this game with a record of 37-31-11 and 85 points and only have three games left to play to make up ground on the Penguins. 

The Capitals have struggled lately as they have lost seven of their last eight games following a 2-4 loss on the road against the Buffalo Sabres and have been outscored by their opponents by an average of 1.5 to 3.75 goals per game in those contests. The Capitals won the most recent game in the series against the Tampa Bay Lightning by a score of 5-3 at home. However, Washington has lost three of the previous four games in the series against the Lightning and has lost by an average margin of 1.5 goals per game in those contests. 

The Washington Capitals will look to make up ground in the Wild Card race in the Eastern Conference when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday evening.

JustBet has the Tampa Bay Lightning listed as -131 moneyline favorites on the road against the Washington Capitals on Saturday evening. Tampa Bay has won two of the last three and six of the previous ten meetings in the series while having won by an average margin of .2 goals per game over the last ten and 1 goal per game over the previous three games.