The Road to Lord Stanley has Begun!

By the skin of their teeth, Columbus cinched their playoff spot and play their first game tonight. Though not ideal, Columbus will be taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Bolts finished off their season with a record-tying 62 wins. The record was originally established by the Detroit Red Wings in the 1995-1996 season. They also finished with 128 total points.

Another troubling factor? Tampa Bay beat Columbus in all three of their regular season matchups, 17-3.

The key to winning is planting doubt in Tampa Bay early. Establish that we deserve to be in the playoffs and that Columbus is a team to be feared.

Despite clinching back in March and securing the Presidents’ Trophy, they still fought like hell in the rest of their season. After clinching, they won six games in a row and then went 6-3-0 after earning the Presidents’ Trophy.

Related: Last Year's Playoff Run

Success seems to come easy for Tampa Bay, but it’s been an all out brawl for for the Jackets. They have fought and fought and fought to get into the playoffs and their dedication shows.

In their final eight games, Columbus was 7-1-0. One of the biggest contributors to their success was Sergei Bobrovsky.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Sergei Bobrovsky walks into the Stanley Cup Playoffs and chokes.

I love that Russian hipster, but he doesn’t have the best record when it comes to the playoffs. And if he doesn’t step up in Game 1, he’s going to be met with incredibly harsh criticisms.

In 24 post-season appearances, Bob is 5-14 with a 3.49 GAA. For series openers, he’s 1-3 with a .897 save percentage.

The biggest troublemaker on Tampa is Nikita Kucherov. The Kuch is this year’s Art Ross Trophy winner with 128 points (41 goals and 87 assists).

"We feel we have gone through the tendencies of that team, and obviously he's an important one, and have come up with in our mind entering Game 1 the best way to play not just against him, but against that team," Coach Tortorella says, "We'll see if we can come through with it."

Torts isn't the only one preparing for this big game. Duchy is tired of hearing about the other team and is ready get this show on the road.

Can the Jackets beat the No. 1 team in the league and break the curse of round one elimination? Let me know what you think in the comments below!