{"id":415095,"date":"2026-09-30T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/415095\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:02:08","slug":"nuts-bolts-lightning-hockey-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/415095\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuts & Bolts: Lightning hockey is back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything you need to know ahead of the Lightning’s matchup against the New York Rangers\u00a0on Thursday:<\/p>\n

When: Thursday, October 1 – 7 p.m. ET
Where: Madison Square Garden – New York, NY
TV coverage: The Spot – Tampa Bay 66 (check local listings); Pregame show begins at 6 p.m. ET
Radio coverage: 102.5 MHz-FM<\/a>, Lightning Radio 24\/7<\/a>
Stream: TampaBayLightning<\/a>.com\/StreamNow<\/a><\/p>\n

Lines from Wednesday’s practice (subject to change)
Forwards
Ilya Mikheyev -Brayden Point- Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Jansen Harkins – Jake\u00a0Guentzel
Gage Goncalves – Anthony Cirelli – Conor Geekie
Jeff Viel- Zemgus Girgensons – Pontus\u00a0Holmberg \u00a0<\/p>\n

Defensemen
JJ Moser – John Carlson
Victor Hedman – Charle-Eduord D’Astous
Ryan McDonagh – Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg – Max Crozier<\/p>\n

Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Dennis Hildeby<\/p>\n

Thursday’s Matchup
The Lightning open the 2026-27 season on Thursday with a 7 p.m. road\u00a0matchup against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden…The Lightning went 1-2-0 against the Rangers a season ago and were led in scoring by Nikita Kucherov (0-3\u20143 in 3 GP) and Darren Raddysh (0-3\u20143 in 3 GP)…The Bolts are 54-52-12 all-time against the Rangers, including 26-30-4 on the road…Martin St. Louis is the franchise\u2019s all-time scoring leader versus New York with 20-26\u201446 in 46 games, while Kucherov leads active players with 10-30\u201440 in 33 games…Three different Lightning goalies faced the Rangers in 2025-26…Jonas Johansson went 1-0-0 with a .900 save percentage, while Brandon Halverson was 0-1-0 with an .810 save percentage and Andrei Vasilevskiy finished 0-1-0 with a .615 save percentage…Vasilevskiy owns a 7-9-2 career record against New York along with a .908 save\u00a0percentage, while Dennis Hildeby is still awaiting his first action versus the Rangers.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Sports Item of the Game
October 1st of the Month Sale
Visit TampaBaySports.com<\/a> today for the October 1st of the Month Sale, with 50% or more off select Lightning products. \u00a0Shop online today only while supplies last.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Road Ahead
Saturday, October 3 vs. Washington Capitals
Monday, October 5 vs. Philadelphia Flyers
Thursday, October 8 vs. Minnesota Wild<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know ahead of the Lightning’s matchup against the New York Rangers\u00a0on Thursday: When: Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-415095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}