TAMPA Nashville Predators T-Shirts Authentic , Fla. — After being the final team in the league to start the season, the Tampa Bay Lightning finally get the chance to be back on the ice Thursday when they host the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday at Amalie Arena.Tampa Bay has been off since opening the season with a shootout victory against the Florida Panthers on Saturday. Vancouver, meanwhile, already has three games under its belt following Tuesday’s loss at Carolina.The Lightning, a Stanley Cup favorite this season, looked anything like a top contender despite the victory on opening night after allowing 43 shots on goal to the Panthers. With the extended time off between games, Tampa Bay went back to a training camp mindset looking to have a stronger showing in the second game.Article continues below ...“We need to raise our compete level, we didn’t execute plays like we usually do,” Lightning forward Yanni Gourde said. “We turned too many pucks over and that was part of why we played like we did in the first period. We know we need to work on that and we were out on the ice (for practice) and working hard it it, so that’s good for us.”Despite the victory on opening night, the Lightning are aware their level of play needs to rise quickly to live up to the expectations they have for themselves, let alone the outside expectations. They should get a boost with the return of Tyler Johnson Nashville Predators Hoodies Authentic , who missed the final two weeks of preseason plus the season opener due to an upper-body injury.Johnson has been practicing all week with the team and expects to be in the lineup when Tampa Bay returns to action. That has forced head coach Jon Cooper to move some personnel around when it comes to line combinations.“There’s parts of our game we liked from last game and some we didn’t,” Cooper said. “We are trying to find the best mix possible so we can score more than one shorthanded goal in a game. This is what we’re doing now. We’re just trying to find the chemistry a little bit.”The Canucks don’t have similar expectations in the first year of the post-Sedin era. Vancouver is in the midst of a rebuild with the likes of Bo Horvat, Brock Boesner and Calder Trophy candidate Elias Pettersson.But, starting the season with one victory in three games leaves a bit of an empty feeling despite the optimism with some of the youth injected in to the lineup.“Losing sucks,” Horvat told the Vancouver Province. “No matter how many goals you score, if you lose at the end of the day, it’s still a loss. For us, that’s our main focus: We want to win hockey games. That’s the main goal.”Canucks head coach Travis Green has been moving the lines around to try to find the right mix of offense — which has not been a problem in the early going — and defense, which has been a bit of an issue, allowing 14 goals in the opening three games. The road back to the Stanley Cup Final took two very different turns for the Penguins and Predators at the start of the second round.Back-to-back defending champion Pittsburgh roared back from a two-goal, third-period deficit to beat the Washington Capitals, while the Winnipeg Jets chased Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne in a convincing 4-1 victory in Game 1. As each team prepares for Game 2 Nashville Predators Hats Authentic , two key pieces could be ready to help.Penguins center Evgeni Malkin practiced Saturday and is on the verge of returning to the lineup after missing the past two games with an apparent leg injury. Coach Mike Sullivan called Malkin a game-time decision, though signs are pointing to the Russian star playing Sunday at Washington (3 p.m. EDT, NBC).”If I’m playing, I’m ready to play,” Malkin said. ”If you play, you need to show you can, you show you’re 100 percent. It’s not like the regular season. You can’t play slow the first period and be better in third. If I play, if I’m ready, I’m ready first shift.”Predators winger Auston Watson skated just seven first-period shifts Friday night before leaving with an undisclosed injury. His teammates outshot the Jets 48-19 and still lost, though a healthy Watson for Game 2 back in Music City (7 p.m., NBCSN) could make a difference as the defending Western Conference champions try to even the series between the NHL’s top two teams.”Getting this squared up before we go to Winnipeg is definitely important,” said Watson Custom Nashville Predators Jerseys , who felt great and called it a good practice. ”We’ll do our best to take care of business.”The Penguins and Predators each took care of business in six games in the first round. Malkin had three goals and two assists in five games before being injured against Philadelphia, and the line of Colton Sissons, former Pittsburgh center Nick Bonino and Watson combined for 19 points in beating Colorado.It’s impossible to overstate Malkin’s value to the Penguins. Top-line winger Jake Guentzel called Malkin’s potential return a ”game-changer,” restoring one of their most dangerous options on the power play and at even strength after a season in which the 31-year-old forward put up 98 points.Malkin skated on the fourth line between rookie Zack Aston-Reese and Tom Kuhnhackl at practice and on the first power-play unit. If he plays, it wouldn’t be in a limited role.”Putting Geno on the fourth line? Probably not,” Sullivan said. ”We’ll try to put him in a position where he can play to his strengths, be successful as an individual and help our team win.”Just as the Penguins drew on two long playoff runs to come back against the Capitals, the Predators need only look up at their Western Conference champions banner in the rafters as they try to rebound.”We just have to keep having that bounce-back mentality we’ve had since I’ve been here for two and a half years,” center Ryan Johansen said. ”We’re looking forward to tomorrow night’s game because we know we’re going to get a great response from everybody in here.”A FOR DISCIPLINEReferees combined to call three penalties each in Game 1 of Penguins-Capitals and Jets-Predators. Nashville was the most-penalized team in the league during the regular season but hasn’t taken one its past two games.”We’re trying to get better in a lot of different areas,” coach Peter Laviolette said. ”And you hope that through the course of fixing some things, continuing to do things right that you like, fixing some things www.officialdevils.com , staying out of the penalty box, whatever it may be that at the end of the night you’ll be able to move forward from that. There are some things that I guess are going in the right direction.”The strength of the Washington and Pittsburgh power plays has those teams watching themselves and trying to avoid time in the sin bin.”I think both teams go into the series trying to be disciplined for that reason,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. ”You don’t want to give the power plays an opportunity to have an impact in the game.HELLEBUYCK SHINESConnor Hellebuyck, a Vezina Trophy finalist as the NHL’s top goaltender, starred for the Jets in making 47 saves in Game 1. In a breakout year for the 24-year-old, it was the kind of game that showed Winnipeg it has someone ready to take on the best in the West.”There’s great difficulty in a lot of the saves and finding the puck in those scrums, but he’s built for that,” coach Paul Maurice said. ”He’s a big man that moves well and tracks well in traffic – especially close traffic. So he’s capable of that kind of game in that kind of environment.”—AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed.—