No. 1 in the East faces No. 1 in the West on Thursday (9 p.m.) as the Lightning travel to Calgary to meet the Flames. These teams are both potent offensively, ranking in the top five in scoring. Nevertheless, the Flames have the better defensive stats, as Calgary is third in goals against and second in shots against, and Tampa Bay is just 14th in goals allowed per game and 22nd in shots on goal surrendered per game.

Tampa Bay is rolling with an 8-1 hot streak as of late and its only loss came in overtime against Winnipeg. The Lightning have been scoring goals for fun during this stretch, putting in four or more goals in eight of their past nine games. The Lightning recently welcomed back No. 1 goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy from a broken foot, though backup Louis Domingue did a reasonable job.

Calgary also has won eight of its past nine games — fueled by a dynamic top line of Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm who have a combined 117 points. Calgary has been forced to go with David Rittich in net recently because of an injury to Mike Smith, but Rittich been solid with an 11-3-1 mark as a starter to go with a 2.21 goals against average and .925 save percentage.

This is a tough one to handicap with both teams playing well, but we did see Tampa Bay lose in overtime on the road against Winnipeg, and it will find winning on the road to be a tough challenge against some of these good Western Canadian teams. Calgary is 11-5 at home this season.

The play: Calgary, -105.