After beating the Islanders last night at the St Pete Times Forum, the Lighting are 5-1-1 since their demolishing defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers.

The Bolts crushed the Isle last night 5-2 in a game that was better played than the score might appear.  Antero Niitymaki continued his string of dominance, leading the Lightning to a W.

In the first period, Steven Stamkos started the scoring with a shot that is no becoming his patented goal, the PPG from the crease to the right of the opposing netminder.  If he gets a pass that isn’t bouncing and lands on his stick, he can almost 100% of the time place that shot in the upper left hand corner of the net, leaving the goalie minor room for error.  Stammer’s 30th goal, moved him behind Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Marleau, Sidney Crosby, Marian Gaborik and Ilya Kovalchuk.  Quite the list of players and not surprisingly, all Olympians, all except Stammer of course. Steve Yzerman’s biggest blunder in choosing his team was not leaving off Vincent Lecavalier or Martin St Louis, but leaving off the 19 year old Stamkos.  One of the best players in the league, 19 years old and one of the faces of Canadian hockey, you would think that would get you on the team.

Sorry for that diatribe.

The next goal of the game came from the Isle on the grossest goal in history that whoever got credit for it, should call the NHL and give the goal back.  It trickled in off of one of our Dman’s feet, and in past Nitty.  Kind of unfortunate for Nitty at that point because he had shutout look about him.  He is seeing the puck so well right now, to watch one of these garbage redirect, accident goals go in, always pains you as a fan.

Now the 2nd period was interesting as at about the 13 minute mark, the Islanders, even strength mind you, kept the puck in our zone for what seemed like 20 minutes.  It was only about 3 minutes, but we couldn’t change lines, were forced to ice the puck and then call a timeout because our line was so tired and then proceeded to come back out of the timeout and give up a goal to Jon Sim.

20 seconds later though, the Lightning found their groove and never looked back.  Martin St Louis scored on a wrister to make it 2-2.  30 seconds after that, Vinny and Alex Tanguay got in behind the defense for a 2 on 0 rush, and Vinny bucketed his 15th goal of the season. Steven Stamkos (31st goal to put him solely in 5th place in goals scored) scored about halfway through the period in the third to make it 4-2 and Tanguay buried an empty netter to finish them off.

Other than the brief 3 minute run during the 2nd period, the Lightning played well all evening.

***

• Rick Tocchet played with some new lines last night.  Vinny, Veilleux, Tanguay (sorry Vinny) – Malone, Thompson, Halpern – Downie, St Louis, Stammer – Zenon, Fedoruk and a rotating Foster
• Vinny has 14 points in his last 12 games
• Stammer has a point in his last 8 games, and has gone for 13 points in that span

Tampa Bay Sports & Entertainment LLC, a group owned by Jeff Vinik, has purchased the Tampa Bay Lightning, the lease to the St Pete Times Forum and over 5 acres surrounding the Forum subject to approval from the leagues other owners.

“Buying the Lightning and joining the Tampa Bay community is a dream come true,” Vinik said.  “I’ve been an avid hockey fan my whole life and I pledge to our fans that I will work my hardest to build the Lightning into a world class organization both on and off the ice.  I hope to bring a high level of excitement and intensity back to Lightning hockey, with a goal of having the team consistently compete for the Stanley Cup.  I have a passion for the game and will do my best to restore a winning culture at the St. Pete Times Forum that all of our fans and partners can be proud of.”

This is no surprise to people who follow hockey as this deal has been in place for weeks.

The question that remains is the purchase price, and what happens to our roster now that a man known for managing money shrewdly, takes over our team.  There were multiple reports that Vinik wanted to immediately trade Vincent Lecavalier, but that Gary Bettman was negotiating a clause in the purchase agreement that barred Vinik from doing so for at least 3 seasons.

“I’m really proud, when we got here we were last in everything and we’ve put together a system where as of today, we’re top 15 in prospects and both our AHL team and our NHL is currently in a playoff spot,” outgoing owner Oren Koules told ESPN.com Friday. “A lot of credit goes to GM Brian Lawton. We put in a lot of work here. The hockey side of this organization was in disarray when we took over 19 months ago.”

With a 2-1 last night against the Atlanta Thrashers, the Lightning moved back into the 8th playoff spot with 57 points, tied with both the Rangers and Panthers in points, but holding the tie breaker for 8th place.

It was, get this, Antero Niitymaki’s 16th victory against the Thrashers.   16 victories are great, but how about coupling that with 0 losses.  16 and freaking 0!!! I love that stat.

Stephane Veilleux, who has been a healthy scratch a few times lately and Martin St Louis scored for the Lightning in the first period, and allowed Niity to take over from there.

In his last five contests, which he has been seeing the puck incredibly well in, he is 4-0-1.  He has stopped 147 out of 152 shots during that stretch for a .967 save percentage and a 1.00 GAA.  It’s hard to beat any teams when your keeper is playing up to that level, even harder to beat a team with a lot of skill like the Lightning.

“We’re in a playoff mode right now,” St. Louis said. “It was good to get the win in regulation. It was big because they didn’t get a point.”

THN.com is reporting that the negotiations between the Lightning and Jeffrey Vinik have hit a snag.  The snag is that Vinik realized that trading Vincent Lecavalier would result in a severe backlash in the community.  His agenda then switched from getting Vinny to agree to waive his no movement clause, to purchasing the Lightning at a discounted price.

That reported discounted price is 140 million, from 170 million.  Vinny will have about 77 million left on his contract after next season, so the reduction in purchase price will help him cover about half of Vinny’s contract. Commisioner Gary “Douchebag”  Bettman is apparently requiring as part of a purchase that the new ownership group keep Vinny for at least 3 seasons.

If Vinik were to successfully negotiate the price down to 140 million, and then move Vinny after 3 years, he would essentially have saved almost 7 million dollars from the purchase price that was being reported last week.   There are some reports floating around, that Vinik wants the sale price to be as low as 125 million, not 140 million.

While it looks like Vinny will be staying, this new ownership group has the potential to be as awful as the last one.

In an important game (still not must win time yet), the Bolts failed to beat the Washington Capitals on Sunday, losing a tough game 3-2.

”Every team wants to come in a make a statement and say ‘We’re the team that knocked these guys off,”’ Brooks Laich said, ‘’so we’re getting teams’ best efforts every single night. We’re in special territory right now, and a chance to make history in our next game, so we’ve got to be prepared.”

The Caps took a 2-0 lead in the 2nd period off of goals by Nicklas Backstrom and Brooks Laich.  The Lightning tied the game up 2-2 in the third period off of goals by Martin St Louis and Steven Stamkos, their 16th and 29th goals respectively.  Alexander Ovechkin scored late in the third period which ended up being the Game Winning Goal.

The Bolts had a chance to tie the game with a few seconds left in the third period, but Vincent Lecavalier was thrown out of the draw in the Caps end of the ice, was pissed off about it (and if you saw it, he was rightfully pissed), got a penalty called on him, moving the draw into the Lightning zone, essentially ending any chance the Bolts had of coming back.

The game didn’t feature the same amount of fisticuffs and hostilities as the last game between these two teams, surprising considering the way the last game went down.

The loss moved the Lightning from 8th to 12th place, and at 55 points, are only two points out of 6th place in the East.  Expect a lot more jostling in the standings in the next two months, as 8 teams are seperated by a grand total of 3 points in the East.