Game 46 - Colorado at Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay Lightning versus the Colorado Avalanche...this was an interesting game. Well, I thought it was, anyway.

Unfortunately, the Lightning lost. There were three things that buried them in this game. They didn't take advantage of Colorado's slow start in the first period, they only had a total of three second period shots, and that Theodore managed to stop everything they had in the third period.

The Lightning came out hitting from the start, and I think that really threw the Avalanche off of their game for the first 10 minutes or so. To me, Colorado looked a little stunned and unsure of themselves at the beginning. Tampa isn't usually a physical team, and Colorado wasn't expecting them to be. It was a brilliant move by the Lightning, to say the least. However, they didn't following it up with scoring and the Avalanche were able to adjust.

The second period, which is typically the Lightning's best period this season, was flat. I think Tampa got caught up in hitting and playing physical, and they forgot to be offensive. I've noticed that about this team - they're very single minded in terms of their play. Either they're physical, or they're offensive, or they're defensive - it's rarely everything at once.

There seems to be a little problem with multitasking. I haven't decided if it's just the stereotypical guy problem of multitasking, or if it's a coaching thing. I'm sort of leaning towards the coaching side myself. I actually think that Tortorella's a pretty good coach, but focusing on one thing at a time instead of a more unified style may not be a solution. Not saying that he does that, but sometimes it appears to be that way.

And the third period, well, that was all about Jose Theodore. The guy stopped all 20+ shots the Lightning had that period. Can't fault Tampa Bay for their work ethic with that. Not that Ramo did all that poorly - because he didn't - but he also didn't have 20+ shots to face in a single period this game, either.

Despite the score, and the lack of shots during the second period, it was a good game. It was very much like a Western Conference game to me - particularly at the beginning. The Lightning didn't play their regular game, but came out with a different look. It was a very entertaining style of hockey, but also a difficult style to maintain for very long. Playing physical and hitting as much as they did would definitely wear down players and make them more susceptible to injury. Particularly when many of these guys log over 20 minutes a game on a regular basis.

But still, it was as if they were an entirely different Lightning team that took to the ice tonight. There was absolutely no indication of that yesterday when I saw them at practice, so it was something of a surprise for me. Makes me wonder what happened between yesterday and today to make them change like that.

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