Tampa Bay is on a five-game point streak and Colorado is coming off a road trip in which it earned seven of a possible eight points Roberto Luongo Jersey , so one team is about to cool off — even if for one night.The Lightning (5-1-1) had a record-setting 6-3 victory in Chicago on Sunday night while the Avalanche head home after one of their most successful trips. Colorado won the last three contests of the four-game Eastern Conference swing after a shootout loss against the New York Rangers.Its reward is a home matchup against Tampa Bay on Wednesday night. But the way the Avalanche (6-1-2) are playing, nothing is shaking their confidence but they’re not getting too cocky.Article continues below ...“We played some good games on the road,” coach Jared Bednar said after Monday’s 4-1 victory at Philadelphia. “Some of the ones when we were a little bit up and down, our big guys were good, our goaltending was good, our special teams were good. We are doing enough to win, and I still think we got room for improvement. I think a lot to like, a lot to build on but a lot to like, for sure.”One thing to like is the play of Colorado’s top line. Captain Gabriel Landeskog had nine points (seven goals, two assists) on the road trip, including a hat trick against New Jersey. His linemates, center Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, have each recorded at least one point in all nine games this season.“When you’re playing with two good players like Mikko and Nate, offensively we’re going to create and it’s going to take care of itself,” Landeskog said after the win over the Flyers. “We’re just trying to move and skate and talk and try to be threats out there, all three of us.”As well as the Avalanche are playing http://www.floridapanthersteamshops.com/authentic-vincent-trocheck-jersey , they haven’t topped what Tampa Bay did against the Blackhawks. The Lightning had 33 shots on goal in the second period, which set an NHL record for shots in a period since the statistic became an official stat in 1997-98. Tampa Bay finished with a franchise-best 55 shots.“There are so many things you need,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper told The Tampa Bay Times. “It’s why it doesn’t happen that often. Everything has to go your way. The puck has to bounce over somebody’s stick, you have to be in the right spot. It’s really hard to do.”Winning in Colorado has not been hard for Tampa Bay of late. The Lightning have won their last three meetings in Denver and outscored the Avalanche 13-7 in that stretch, and bring the best penalty kill in the NHL into Pepsi Center. Tampa Bay didn’t give up a power-play goal until Sunday, which snapped a streak of 28 straight kills to start the season.“The PK had a (heck) of a run,” goaltender Louis Domingue, who nearly made the save with his glove, told The Tampa Bay Times on Sunday. Jason Botterill has experienced both sides of the spectrum in confronting the challenges of building a competitive NHL team versus trying to sustain one.In Buffalo, the Sabres’ second-year general manager is attempting to rebuild from scratch a team in the midst of a franchise-worst, seven-year playoff drought. In his previous job as assistant GM in Pittsburgh, the test was keeping together a Sidney Crosby-led core of a team that became the first in nearly 20 years to repeat as Stanley Cup champions in 2016-17.Botterill noted the common denominator for both comes down to scouting.“You’re always searching for talent,” Botterill said. “So it gets back to the importance of finding players that are going to join your system.”Teams at the bottom need to stockpile young talent, and hope it eventually jells. The Sabres, for example, enter this season with the top new player to watch in 18-year-old defenseman Rasmus Dahlin Adrian Kempe Jersey , the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft.Other rebuilding teams are counting on their youngsters to make immediate impacts.In Ottawa, the Senators are turning to rookie first-round pick Brady Tkachuk. In Vancouver, there’s center Elias Pettersson. The Carolina Hurricanes, meanwhile, are counting on forward Andrei Svechnikov, the No. 2 pick, to help a franchise snap a nine-season playoff drought — the NHL’s longest active streak.There’s pressure on the league’s elite, too.Winning teams lack the luxury of high draft picks, and are required to discover hidden gems in the draft and signing European and college free agents.As Penguins GM Jim Rutherford also noted, the NHL’s salary-cap system means successful teams have a more difficult time retaining their own talent.“You want to keep those players, but you can’t,” Rutherford said. “We went through it two years ago when we lost a bunch of real key players. There’s nothing to do about it. You can’t.”Valuable as they were, forward Chris Kunitz, goalie Marc Andre-Fleury, defensemen Eric Fehr and Ian Cole, and in this offseason’s case http://www.kingsproshop.com/authentic-alex-iafallo-jersey , forward Conor Sheary, were among the players the Penguins were unable to retain.Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman, who won nine Stanley Cup titles between three teams, said the salary cap makes it more difficult to maintain a contender, though it’s not all that different since winning his first championship with the 1973 Montreal Canadiens.“The challenge is you have to have players coming in the front door,” Bowman said. “When I was in Montreal, they had a slogan that was in the dressing room. It said ‘And the kids go marching on.’ That was 50 years ago, but it’s so much more now.”A list of some of the top newcomers (and one familiar returnee) to look out for this season:RASMUS DAHLIN, Buffalo Sabres defensemanHe’s a smooth-skating, heads-up play-making Swedish-born blue-liner, who has shown a fearless ability of jumping into the rush. Dahlin will require time to adapt to the smaller NHL ice surface and has shown signs of being a little too cavalier with the puck in committing turnovers. He is improving as a defender, and expected to quarterback the top power-play unit. The Sabres intend to allow Dahlin to learn from his mistakes in giving him plenty of playing time this year.ELIAS PETTERSSON, Vancouver Canucks centerWith Vancouver’s 2018 first-round draft pick defenseman Quinn Hughes committed to playing this season at Michigan, there’s plenty of buzz over Pettersson, the No. 5 overall pick in 2017. He’s coming off a season in which he helped Vaxjo win the Swedish Elite League championship and earned regular-season and playoff MVP honors.RYAN DONATO, Boston Bruins forwardAfter spending three seasons playing at Harvard for his father Womens Anze Kopitar Jersey , former NHL player Ted Donato, the 22-year-old got a head start on his NHL career by scoring five goals and nine points in 12 games for the Bruins last season.WARREN FOEGELE, Carolina Hurricanes left wingThough the jury remains out as to whether Svechnikov will spend the entire season in Carolina, the Hurricanes are high on Foegele, their 2014 third-round pick.“He’s what we want in a Hurricane,” first-year coach Rod Brind’Amour told The Charlotte Observer this week. Foegele had two goals and an assist in his first two NHL games last season, and also finished second in AHL Charlotte with 28 goals as a rookie.BRADY TKACHUK, Ottawa Senators forwardSelected with the No. 4 pick in the draft, the son of former NHL star Keith Tkachuk is considered a key building block of a Senators team rebuilding from scratch. At 19, he overcame a slow start in his freshman year at Boston University to score eight goals and 31 points in 40 games. Ottawa’s youth movement also includes Colin White, a 2015 first-round pick, who had two goals and four assists in 21 NHL games last season.ILYA KOVALCHUK, Los Angeles Kings left wingHe’s back. After spending the past five seasons playing in the Kontinental Hockey League, the NHL’s 2001 No. 1 draft pick has returned to North America after signing a three-year contract with the Kings. At 35, Kovalchuk showed he’s not lost a step in splitting two Vegas defenseman and scoring his first preseason goal in a 7-2 loss last week. Kovalchuk has 417 goals and 816 points in 816 career games.