Fight Club

The Tampa Bay Lightning lost another heartbreaker to the New Jersey Devils last night on a tip in by Jamie Lagenbrunerwith 39 seconds left in regulation. It is the 2nd time this season the Devils have burned us in the final minutes of a game (sent the game to OT with .3 seconds left last month).

Vinny Lecavalier continued to be more aggressive looking to score and buried a nice wrap around in the 2nd to make the score 1-0. Our 2nd goal was a gorgeous PPG on a tic-tac-toe from Ryan Malone to Steven Stamkos and finished by Steve Downie, who is starting to really find his role on the Power Play unit.

The game was physical as hell with 3 fights and 46 minutes of penalties handed out. These two teams have never liked each other, and you could tell on the ice last night. As soon as the videos of these fights become available, I’ll post them up here. The first one was bad, as James Wright (19 years old) got beat down by Matthew Corrente. It was hard to watch honestly, and I’m pretty sure that James Wright had no intention of getting into a fight. The 2nd fight was between my man Zenon Konopka and Corrente again, most likely in retaliation for Corrente fighting a non-fighter. This fight was close with both guys landing some big shots. The last fight was between Ryan Malone and Mark Fraser. Fraser cross-checked Malone in the back in retaliation for Malone crushing Patrick Elias on a legal hit, and Malone just got up and punched him in the face. Malone pretty much got caught up in his jersey after that and this fight was uneventful.

The Lightning lead the league in fighting majors, and Zenon Konopka is the individual leader in fighting majors in the NHL. As mentioned before on this site, the Lightning are displaying a hard-nosed 1980′s style of toughness that is a direct reflection of the way that head coach Rick Tocchet played the game and I love it.

We have an important game vs the Islander tonight at home, and we need to break out of this losing streak. Last night was the first time we have lost 3 straight regulation games all season (first time we had lost two was the game before).