Archive for January, 2010

In an unusually physical game for two teams who see each other only twice  year, the Ducks defeated the Bolts last night at the St Pete Time Forum, 2 to 1 in a shootout. The game featured fantastic goaltending, over 60 PIMs and 3 fights. The Lightning got on the board early with a breakaway goal by Martin St Louis off of a gorgeous dish by Steven Stamkos. One of the guys who sits near me, a season ticket holder as well, was having a conversation with me after the goal about how the two of those guys seem like [...]

With the sale of the Bolts looming over the organization, trade rumors are starting to swirl across the league.  Last night after leaving the game, I popped open some emails and internet stories that had the Los Angeles Kings very interested in our star center. Vinny would make sense for the Kings who have been linked to Ilya Kovalchuk the last few weeks.  With the Thrasers not allowing teams to talk to Ilya’s agents, it is possible that whatever prospects or players you move for Kovalchuk could all be for naught if you don’t win a Cup.  He could end [...]

Im what could spell doom for this season, the Tampa Bay Lightning, according to TheHockeyNews.com and Ken Campbell, will be sold to Boston hedge fund manager Jeffrey Vinik as early as today. Campbell mentioned this yesterday in a column that he said would ultimately spell doom for the team this season and for the franchises future. Yeah, one guy with lots of money beats two guys with none who spent more time plotting against one another than they did building a hockey team, but if we’re hearing things and reading the tea leaves correctly, there are still all kinds of [...]

Sorry for not posting on the last two games until just now, but I was out of town for the weekend. I did get a chance to watch both games, an OT win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, and a shootout victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Saturday night. The game vs the Leafs was surprisingly exciting.  The tone of the game got set in the first period with 40 minutes of penalties, including 2 fights, and one 10 minute misconduct. If you want to see as good of a hockey knockout punch there is, watch this haymaker [...]

“They out-hit us, they outplayed us, they out-everythinged us, they outcoached us,” Head Coach Rick Tocchet said. “Their leaders out-did our leaders, their grinders out-did our grinders. Our goaltender got out-goaltended.  The only thing good was the bus was on time for this game. The bus driver was the best thing we had.” The game was a complete embarrassment. The Lightning had 7 players with a -2 or worse:  Kurtis Foster, Jeff Halpern, Ryan Malone, Martin St Louis, Paul Szczechura, Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos.  Other than Zenon Konopka and Alex Tanguay who had 0 +/- ratings, everyone else had a [...]

The Tampa Bay Lightning lost for only the third time last night when going into the third period with a lead. With a chance to move into 9th place in the East (2 points behind the Canadiens) the Lightning ended up giving away 2 points to the Florida Panthers who are now tied with the Bolts at 46 points and 12th place in the East. The Panthers opened up the scoring in the 1st period with a goal on their very first shot. At the time the Lightning were up 7 shots to 0, were looking great, then had a [...]

What a game last night!  The title of this post is the words that Steve Downie was yelling at Alexander Ovechkin from the penalty box, in one of the most exciting periods of hockey at the St Pete Times Forum in a long time. A quick synopsis of the game.  First period, we crushed them.  We were up 4-1 after the first stanza.  I want to say off the top of my head that the shots were 15 to 7 after period 1.  Goals by Vincent Lecavalier, Steven Stamkos (2) and Stephane Veilleux for the Bolts and Alexander Semin for [...]

I have been watching hockey for quite some time, and don’t know if I have ever witnessed what I saw on Friday night.  The lights @ The Prudential Center in crappy Newark, NJ stopped working.  It looked for awhile that they might finish the game, essentially using the long break while fixing the lights as an intermission, only switching sides at the end of the 9 minutes remaining in the 2nd period.  Eventually though, the light malfunction caused the game to be picked back up from where it stood Friday night, on Sunday. Before the light malfunction, the Lightning were [...]