Tampa Bay Lightning: It’s Time For The Bolts To ‘Octopi Hockeytown’

The Tampa Bay Lightning has had some pretty tough luck in Detroit thus far, but Game 4 is time for the Lightning to light it up and “Octopi Hockeytown.”

There is no denying that the Tampa Bay Lightning will have their work cut out for them as they charge into the Joe Louis Arena tonight to take on the Detroit Red Wings in Game 4 of the First Round of the 2014-15 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

At this particular point and time, the Lightning are where no team in the post season ever aspires to be. The Lightning is down 2-1 in the series with Game 4 being in one of the toughest buildings in the National Hockey League to play in, the Joe Louis Arena.

The Lightning has seen plenty of success against the Red Wings this season, but their last two encounters in the Joe have been less than stellar. In fact, the Lightning has been shut out in both of the last two meetings at the Joe. Now that Game 4 is on the horizon, it is time for the Tampa Bay Lightning to surge into the Joe and much like the Red Wings like to say, “Octopi Hockeytown.”

We all know that the Lightning have the necessary tools to get the job done. Need proof? Take a look at the way the Tampa Bay Lightning played in Game 2 of the series. The Bolts were aggressive, they were chasing their own rebounds, and most importantly, they were capitalizing on the man advantage.

This is the kind of hockey that the Lightning will have to play in Hockeytown tonight if they want to get back on top and bring this series back to the Amalie Arena with momentum on their side.

If the Lightning want to make this happen there are a couple of things they are going to have to do in order to get the job done tonight.

Be Aggressive

At the risk of sounding like a High School cheerleader, the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to have to be aggressive. This goes far beyond the pushing and shoving that people tend to associate with the term “aggressive.”

While we will assert that good, solid hits and maybe even a little bit of pushing and shoving will do the Lightning some good tonight, we actually mean that the Lightning need to be more aggressive with the puck.

This is exactly what the Lightning was doing in Game 2 of the series. They were being aggressive with the puck, spending plenty of time in the offensive zone, firing multiple shots as Red Wings goaltender Petr Mrazek and following up on their shots by nailing back the rebounds.

Also, we would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t mention the obvious advantages of striking first blood. During the Regular Season, the Tampa Bay Lightning were 35-7-4 when they scored first in the encounter. We don’t know about you, but we like those odds…a lot.

Stay Out of the Penalty Box

The Tampa Bay Lightning has always had a nasty habit of falling prey to penalty traps at the most inopportune times, which have resulted in many more opposing team goals than I would care to mention.

I have said this a million times, but as you can imagine I am going to say this once again; there are only so many times that you can open a door for the other team before they come charging through it and proceed to slam it in your face. Why give them the opportunity that you could be using to put a shot on net?

Capitalize on the Power Play

The same thing we discussed just a second ago works in reverse as well. As we have seen over the course of the last three games, the Red Wings seem to own a time share in the penalty box just two doors down from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This means that the Lightning has had plenty of opportunities of their own to capitalize with the man advantage. So far in this series the Tampa Bay Lightning has had 17 attempts at the Power Play and have only been able to capitalize on 2 of them.

Stop and think about this one for a second. We’ll wait right here. Can you imagine what the outcome of each of the previous games would have been if we could have properly capitalized on our opportunities? This series would be in the bag and we’d be sitting next to the Anaheim Ducks waiting on the next round after tonight.

Be Consistent

When Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper spoke to the media this morning from Detroit, he talked about the Lightning continuing to play their system and how the momentum will eventually swing back in the Lightning’s direction.

"“We felt pretty good about our game, and in this situation we’ve just got to stick to our structure, our compete, and I just think momentum swings your way eventually if you keep doing the right things and for most of the series we have.”"

All in all, they have played fairly decent games thus far. There is not a lot of positives that can be said about Game 3, but at the same time, this is far from the worst game that we have played all season long. What the Lightning really needs to do is stick to what they know and keep the momentum rolling for a whole 60 minutes.

As we have said plenty of times, the Lightning has all of the tools that they need to get the job done. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be in the post season to begin with. All the Lightning needs to do is block out all of the chatter, focus their minds on the task at hand, and do what they do best; score goals and win games.

The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. tonight from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. If you’re still looking for a way to catch all of the action tonight, here is all the information you’ll need to make sure you don’t miss a single second.

Are you, the Bolts Nation, ready to Be The Thunder tonight for our Tampa Bay Lightning? We know we are!

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