Anyone here in the Bolts Nation who has been watching the Tampa Bay Lightning take on the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight at the CONSOL Energy has more than enough reasons to be frustrated. The Lightning were summarily run over by the Penguins in the first period of play, but this isn’t even the worst part of the first period.
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The Lightning are down 2-0 to the Penguins in their last regular season encounter this season. To add insult to injury, the second goal went in after Bishop was distracted by an early, and erroneous goal horn. Then…it happened.
Just over halfway into the first period there was a mysterious stoppage in the game. It turns out that referee Mike Leggo had gotten sick and hurled on the ice. Yes…a referee blew chunks during the game. We’ll let that sink in for a second.
As you can imagine, this means that they had to temporarily stop the game as the ice crew came out to clean up the mess. It wasn’t entirely too long before the game was back underway. Unfortunately, the momentary stoppage did nothing for the Lightning, but that is another story for another time.
The National Hockey League Department of Public Relations announced that due to Leggo’s illness the game between the Lightning and the Penguins would continue under the three-official system.
There is couple of things that concerns us, though. The Tampa Bay Lightning has been dealing with their fair share of illness already this season. First, it was defenseman Radko Gudas who went down with a stomach illness. Not long after, it is Tyler Johnson who would go down with a similar illness.
Given the amount of players in the Penguins organization who have been, or at least been suspected, of contracting the mumps epidemic that has been burning its way through the National Hockey League, this is not exactly the kind of thing you want your players exposed to.
Now, don’t get our words twisted; we are in no way speculating to what is actually plaguing Mike Leggo. He may very well have eaten some bad seafood before the game, but it certainly unnerves us a little bit that our guys (and the Penguins as well) could potentially could have been subjected to something that could cause them issues on and off the ice.
Hopefully, Leggo’s illness is nothing too serious and wasn’t spread to any of the players, coaches, and staff on the ice. Leggo may not be a member of the Bolts Nation, but in times like these we are all one big hockey family. We here at Bolts By The Bay certainly hope that referee Mike Leggo feels much better real soon.
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