Game 42 - Tampa Bay @ Ottawa

Tampa lost a heartbreaker tonight. They were having one of their best games in the last month or so, and lost in overtime to Ottawa - which is one of the best teams in the league. If the puck had bounced another way, then they might've been able to pull it out and win it.

There are a lot of positives to get out of this game for the Lightning, tho. One is that they get a point in the standings for just getting to overtime. Personally, I think that rule ought to be changed to 2 points for a win and 1 point for a loss - period. But it is helpful to a team like Tampa to at least get a point out of it for all of their effort. Anything to break a losing streak, you know.

Another positive was their great start at the beginning of the game. The stats have been floating around about how the second is their best period and all of that, but the slow starts haven't been helping them much, either. I liked the consistency of effort the Lightning had for both the first and second periods, as well as the end of the third and for overtime. It was one of the most consistent games that I've seen from them in a long time, even with that lapse in the third.

In the third period , they regressed back to how they've been playing: tentative and afraid to lose. The Lightning weren't shooting the puck, either, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. It wasn't until around 8 minutes left or so in the game that they finally pulled themselves back together to try to win things. Frankly, they were very lucky that Holmqvist was one of their best players tonight, even taking into consideration the overtime goal that he should've had. They were really lucky that Ottawa only scored one goal in the third period, they way things had been going.

While all of the goals were fairly pretty in this game, Lecavalier's goal was spectacular. He's such a dog that he can take a pass that's behind him, push it thru his own legs, onto his backhand, and still score. He is a very talented hockey player, but also a guy who has far too much time on his hands to be able to practice something like that enough to make it work and seem so effortless in a game situation.

The bottom line for this game is that they were really close to beating the second best team in the NHL. That's not too shabby for a teams that's currently sitting at 29th out of 30 NHL teams. Frankly, I think that's something to feel pretty good about and to draw some motivation from. Sure, it hurt to lose like that in overtime, but I think that with more consistency to their play, they'll be able to the next time around.

Personally, my philosophy with a losing streak is that, if it's not going well for you anyway, you've really got nothing else to lose so you can try just about anything. After all, the worst you can do is lose, and if you're already doing that then why not? You're more apt to make a mistake if you're trying not to. At least, that's been my experience.

I think that they'll break out of this funk of theirs and be back to their winning ways in the next week or two. Hopefully the All-Star break won't interfere with that.

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