The NHL playoffs are finally here. The Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning meet in game one of the NHL East First Round. The Blue Jackets are coming off a five-game series win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The offense is led by Pierre-Luc Dubois with three goals, Cam Atkinson has added three helpers. As a team, they are putting up 2.40 goals and on the defensive end, they are giving up just two goals a game. On Special teams, they have not scored on their power play and have killed off 84.6 percent of their penalties. Goaltenders Joonas Korpisalo has given up five goals on 114 shots faced and Elvis Merzlikins has allowed four goals on 74 shots.

The Tampa Bay Lightning come into the playoffs having won two of their three round-robin games. They lost their las,t game to the Philadelphia Flyers. As a team, they are putting up two goals and on the defensive end, they are giving up 2.67 goals. On special teams, they are scoring on 40 percent of their power plays and they are killing off 90.9 percent of their penalties. The offense is led by Tyler Johnson with two goals, Alex Killorn has added two helpers. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up seven goals on 89 shots faced.
The underdog is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings. Columbus is coming off a nice win over Toronto and did sweep Tampa Bay last season. If the Blue Jackets are going to steal a game this is their best chance.

Play on Columbus.