{"id":537190,"date":"2026-04-02T20:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537190\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:20:16","slug":"penguins-continue-fight-for-playoff-hope-in-game-at-tampa-bay-against-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537190\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins continue fight for playoff hope in game at Tampa Bay against Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This article originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PGHHockeyNOW.com.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;PGHHockeyNOW.com.&quot;}\" class=\"link \">PGHHockeyNOW.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A playoff hope has become a downhill chase as <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/pittsburgh-penguins\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Pittsburgh Penguins;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Pittsburgh Penguins&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> (38-21-16) could slash their magic number to single digits with a win Thursday when they visit one of the best teams in the NHL, the Tampa Bay Lightning (46-22-6) at Benchmark International Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Despite Tampa Bay\u2019s usual position at the top of the standings, the Penguins have points in nine of their last 12 games against Tampa Bay (7-3-2). And the Penguins are 5-2-0 in their last seven visits to Benchmark International Arena dating back to Oct. 23, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Road warriors: The Penguins have points in five-consecutive road games (4-0-1) and have points in 13 of their last 15 road games overall (9-2-4).<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday, Anthony Mantha scored his 30th goal of the season. The first time he\u2019s reached that plateau. Also, he has 21 points (8G-13A) in 30 career games against the Lightning and is a plus-11. His 21 points are the most he\u2019s accumulated vs. one opponent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/pittsburgh-penguins-game-76-the-chase-lines-notes-how-to-watch-vs-lightning\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Click here to read more from PGHHockeyNOW.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Click here to read more from PGHHockeyNOW.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Click here to read more from PGHHockeyNOW.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:FREE WPXI News app;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;FREE WPXI News app&quot;}\" class=\"link \">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Twitter&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Watch WPXI NOW;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Watch WPXI NOW&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article originally appeared on PGHHockeyNOW.com. A playoff hope has become a downhill chase as Pittsburgh Penguins (38-21-16)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5105],"tags":[10448,27417,5,189,4,100,540,92,5168,5167,2171],"class_list":{"0":"post-537190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-anthony-mantha","9":"tag-benchmark-international-arena","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-lightning","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","14":"tag-tampa-bay","15":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","16":"tag-tampabay","17":"tag-tampabaylightning","18":"tag-the-penguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336972613569494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}