Game 50 - Ottawa at Tampa Bay

The Lightning lost to the Ottawa Senators 8-4. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this one. While people are going to be upset about the score, and obviously with good reason, I'm still trying to figure out why it happened.

This was a very weird game to me. Dan Boyle came back to finally play again - and had a good game, I should add, Tampa Bay was on a mini-winning streak, they were at home, they were playing against a team they've played well against this season, and they had a hot goaltender - all of the ingredients to have a fantastic game they should've had a great chance of winning. But they didn't. In fact, they played horribly but showed a good effort, and that's really strange.

The worst part was their problems in the neutral zone - their serious trouble spot all season long. Their passes were getting picked off - and worse than that, they were passing directly to the other team (I know, not intentionally). That's where the major problems were coming from, right there. But I don't think it was a case of the team mentally going on their All-Star break vacations early.

They did absolutely nothing that they'd been doing for the past few games which gave them their recent success. It was as if they decided to try something entirely different, just for kicks and giggles. I realize that that was probably not the game plan originally, but that's what happened, for whatever reason.

Give it to Ottawa, tho. They certainly showed why they're the best team in the Eastern Conference. Alfredsson was a one-man wrecking crew with 6 points on the night - a hattrick and three assists. He's now tied for the league scoring lead with Vinny Lecavalier.

What it looked like to me was a lack of leadership on the team - and I'm not talking about coaching. Again, I'm not sure what the story was with that since usually that's not a problem with this team, but I could probably hazard a guess or two. However, that's just pure speculation on my part, so I won't get into that here.

Well, the team has the weekend to take a much needed mental break and hopefully have their heads cleared for the game on Tuesday against Buffalo. Let's hope that one turns out better, shall we?

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