The Anaheim Ducks neared the end of their six-game road trip on Thursday with a matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Ducks were coming off of one of their poorest offensive performances of the 2024-25 season on Tuesday with a 3-0 loss to the Washington Capitals.

Welcome back to NHL Predictions. Each day, Last Word on Hockey takes a look at the games that are scheduled and then offers insight and analysis to help predict who will be victorious in head-to-head matchups.

BOTTOM LINE: The Tampa Bay Lightning play the Anaheim Ducks in a non-conference matchup. Tampa Bay is 13-6-1 in home games and 23-16-3 overall. The Lightning have gone 5-6-2 in games decided by one goal. Anaheim is 9-10-3 in road games and 18-21-5 overall. The Ducks have conceded 137 goals while scoring 106 for a -31 scoring differential.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will kick off their two-game homestand with a cross-conference matchup against the Anaheim Ducks tonight at 7 p.m. The Bolts (23-16-3) are coming off a disheartening 6-2 loss to a key division rival in the Boston Bruins.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have announced that defenseman Erik Cernak will not return to the club's contest against the Anaheim Ducks. View the original article to see embedded media. The Lightning did not specify Cernak's specific injury,

Here are three reasons to like the Lightning’s new-look power play. Thursday’s moves were transformative, because the personnel and positional changes made it difficult to tell which was the top unit and which was the second. Point men Victor Hedman and Darren Raddysh switched units, with Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel matched with Raddysh.

Although the Ducks beat the Lightning by three goals on Jan. 5, they have, more recently, been battered on their season-long road trip. The Ducks sandwiched the only win on a journey that began with two lopsided losses between a pair of shutouts by their opponents.

The Anaheim Ducks and Tampa Bay Lightning faced off for the second time in two weeks last night when they battled for 65 minutes plus a shootout at Amalie Arena in Tampa.

Anaheim opened the scoring 6:03 into the game on a redirection by forward Troy Terry, but the Lightning tied the score eight minutes later on the power play. Hedman got the puck at the left point and fed forward Brandon Hagel in the right corner, where the latter passed the puck to Anthony Cirelli at the back post for a tap-in and a tie game.

With the Lightning being in a good place in the standings right now, the expectation is that they will be buyers at the 2025 NHL trade deadline. Adding another defenseman should be one of their top priorities, and Montreal Canadiens blueliner David Savard is someone they should have on their radar.

The Ducks, who had been goal-starved on this trek before scoring three in a shootout loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday, face Florida twice in a row in a home-and-home set that begins Saturday.