Charle-Edouard D’Astous has a strong idea of what he and his Tampa Bay Lightning teammates need the rest of the season.

The defenseman said using emotion and playing with more physicality are the answers for the Lightning, who will conclude a back-to-back set on Sunday with a game against the visiting Nashville Predators.

Tampa Bay (45-21-6, 96 points) overcame two quick goals to the surging Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon in a 4-2 victory.

The win, however, largely was due to the play of D’Astous and Emil Lilleberg, depth players on an injury-ravaged defensive corps.

“Just play with emotion, be physical. I think when we do those things (that) it’s going our way and like we showed tonight,” said D’Astous, who collected one goal and one assist on Saturday. He has two and five, respectively, in his past eight outings.

Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel scored his 34th goal of the season, one off matching his career-high mark he set in 2024-25.

Lilleberg provided the game-winning goal on a four-man rush for the Lightning, who are 5-0-2 in their last seven games and are in second place in the Atlantic Division.

It was Lilleberg’s first goal since Nov. 15 and third overall to help Tampa Bay improve to 12-1-1 in the front end of back-to-backs.

However, the Lightning bring a 6-5-2 mark in the second half of that scenario into Sunday’s game with the Predators (34-30-9, 77 points), who hold the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

At home Saturday night against the Montreal Canadiens, Nashville succumbed to a quick attack by the visitors in a 4-1 loss.

“They outplayed us tonight,” center Ryan O’Reilly said after his team’s second loss following five straight victories. “Against their top line, we lost that matchup. We didn’t do enough against them defensively. … It’s disappointing.

“I want to shake this one off and get on to the next. It’s kind of nice it’s back-to-back. We have to shift the focus right now and start preparing for the Lightning. It’s going to be a very tough test for us.”

Since Dec. 9, the Predators are 24-16-5 and are in the postseason hunt.

Of course, any matchup between Tampa Bay and Nashville eventually leads to future Hall of Famer Steven Stamkos.

During a spectacular 16-year career with the Lightning, the 36-year-old Stamkos produced 555 goals and 582 assists for a franchise-record 1,137 points — 22 more than Nikita Kucherov, who was ill and missed Saturday’s win.

In his lone game in Tampa as a visitor on Oct. 28, 2024, Stamkos had two assists in the Predators’ 3-2 overtime loss.

The only assist on the winning marker went to Jake Guentzel, whom the Lightning acquired for their top forward line to replace Stamkos.

That move occurred after Tampa Bay declined to sign its captain, who won two Stanley Cups and two Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophies in 16 seasons.

After a 27-goal first campaign in Nashville, Stamkos has 36 tallies in 73 games.

–Field Level Media

The Boston Celtics might need another big offensive performance from backup point guard Payton Pritchard when they visit the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday night.

Jaylen Brown, Boston’s leading scorer this season, didn’t play Friday night in a 109-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks because of Achilles tendinitis, but Pritchard filled the scoring void with a game-high 36 points, including six 3-pointers. He also collected seven rebounds and four assists.

Pritchard has at least 10 points in nine of his past 10 games for the Celtics, who are in second place in the Eastern Conference.

“The points are one thing,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “But I thought the ball handling, handling the pressure, the offensive rebounding — he had two offensive rebounds in the second half there that were huge for us. So it’s just those big-time plays.”

Those two offensive rebounds led to seven second-chance points.

“It’s just winning basketball,” Pritchard said. “I want to win, so obviously, you want to make a play. You see somebody shoot the ball and I see it coming off the rim, and just fighting, trying to get an extra possession. Those little things can change the game and win a game.”

Pritchard has averaged 25.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 7.3 assists in the eight games Brown has missed this season. The Celtics have seven wins in those eight games. Brown is listed as questionable for Sunday’s game on Boston’s injury report.

Boston (49-24) has won six of its past seven games. The Hornets (39-35) are coming off Saturday night’s 118-114 loss to Philadelphia, which ended Charlotte’s five-game winning streak. The team had an 88-73 lead midway through the third quarter but was outscored 26-17 in the fourth.

“In that fourth quarter especially, our defensive focus started to wane a little bit as we were missing shots,” Charlotte coach Charles Lee said. “The guys did a good job the last few games of not letting that be the case, ever. Our shot-making can’t affect our defense.”

Charlotte, which has clinched at least a spot in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament, leads the NBA in made 3-pointers (1,210) and is third in 3-point percentage (38.2).

Rookie Kon Knueppel tops the league in made 3-pointers this season (256), and teammate LaMelo Ball is third (235).

Knueppel scored 20 points when Charlotte beat the Celtics 118-89 in Boston on March 4.

“We understand they’re going to have that edge on their shoulder because of how we did beat them in Boston, and so we need to turn the page,” Lee said. “Learn and turn the page.”

Jayson Tatum also is listed as questionable on Boston’s injury report (Achilles repair management). Tatum has appeared in 10 of Boston’s 11 games since he returned from surgery to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon last May. The Celtics are 8-2 when he has played.

Tatum played a season-high 37 minutes on Friday night against Atlanta and scored 13 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter.

“Yeah, I mean, just continue to give the game what it needs and then just see where he’s at from a physical standpoint,” Mazzulla said of Tatum’s workload. “There isn’t a specific number (of minutes he can play). It’s more about what looks the best for us, where we’re at, what we need, and we continue to go from there. He played the whole quarter a couple games in a row, and he’s handling it well, and so we just continue to kind of assess that and go from there.”

–Field Level Media

For the past three-plus months, every time the Sacramento Kings visited an Eastern Conference city, they fell short.

The next chance at redemption on the road against an Eastern foe will occur Sunday night when the Kings visit the Brooklyn Nets.

Brooklyn (17-57) has a 10-game losing streak, the longest active skid in the NBA.

Sacramento (19-56) is 6-31 on the road, and its 127-111 win at the Miami Heat on Dec. 6 is among its two away victories over an Eastern Conference team.

Both the Kings and Nets have been eliminated from playoff contention.

In the Kings’ previous road win over the Heat, they started DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray, Russell Westbrook and Maxime Raynaud. In recent games, only Raynaud and DeRozan saw major minutes as the club turned to younger players to get a gauge of who can help it next season.

Sacramento began its current five-game road trip with a 44-point loss at Charlotte on Tuesday, but the Kings have been vastly more competitive in the past two contests. After dropping a 121-117 decision in Orlando on Thursday, the Kings absorbed a 123-113 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.

Sacramento rallied from a 16-point deficit in the third quarter to forge a 97-97 tie on Saturday before getting outscored 26-16 the rest of the way.

While DeRozan led the Kings with 22 points and Raynaud added 18 points and 10 rebounds, coach Doug Christie continued to get extensive looks at DaQuan Jeffries and Daeqwon Plowden.

Jeffries is on the team via a 10-day contract in a hardship exception while Plowden has played 25 games as a two-way player. Jeffries added 15 points after making his debut Thursday while Plowden contributed 14 to reach double figures for the 10th consecutive game.

“Ultimately that’s what we want is the ability to dominate from the bench perspective,” Christie said after his reserves totaled 45 points. “It’s something that you need on a night-to-night basis because they either take the lead, blow it up or they get you back in the game.”

Sacramento is 7-10 in its past 17 games following a 16-game skid Jan. 18-Feb. 21. Before dropping the first three games of its trip, the Kings outlasted the Nets 126-122 last Sunday.

The Nets are on their second double-digit skid this season and are 2-20 in their past 22 games. Brooklyn ended a four-game road trip with Friday’s 116-99 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, when it was outscored 31-15 in the fourth quarter.

Josh Minott led the Nets with 18 points while Ziaire Williams added 16. Minott, along with rookies Ben Saraf and Chaney Johnson, played nearly the entire fourth quarter, when the Nets shot 6 of 19 from the field.

“We just struggled right there, but the guys competed all the way through, every single of them, everybody that played tonight, played really hard and did great things,” Nets coach Jordi Fernandez said. “Everybody got better, so you compete like this, you find a lot of positives.”

–Field Level Media