Game 55 - Tampa Bay at Nashville
The Lightning finally won a game in overtime. Good for them. Especially, if you haven't been scoreboard watching, since both Atlanta & Florida lost tonight. This win puts Tampa Bay 6 points out of first in the division for now. And, the Lightning also have 6 straight wins on the road. That's quite a turnaround from before Christmas when they couldn't buy a win on the road.
Again, the first period wasn't the best. I guess since the Lightning have dabbled with the third period being their worst in some games, and the second period being their worst period in other games, they're trying to be fair and give the first period some poor-play time as well? Again, they lucked out that Nashville didn't take advantage of it. They really need to work on that.
Tampa Bay has also been lucky to have the MacDonald-Gratton-Tarnasky line playing so well recently. I would've liked to have seen Gratton on the top powerplay unit again, since I think he's a good addition. But with only three total penalties called in the game, and only one powerplay for the Lighting, it's better to play it safe and stick with what you know best.
As a side note, I've noticed that ever since the All-Star Game, Lecavalier isn't taking many slap shots as he typically does. And when he is, it seems to me as if he's holding up on them a little. I guess he didn't know how hard his shot was before the skills competition, huh? And now that he does, he doesn't want to hurt anybody with it? That's rather sweet of him, but no one's been hurt so far this season because of it. He's got a good shot, so he should use it. And, now that everyone else knows how hard he shoots, people just might get out of the way when he does. You never know.
So, 6 points out is good, not to mention they've now won 6 games out of their last 10. Here's to hoping that the climb continues upwards. If they do manage to scrap their way into winning the division, they'll probably be better prepared for the first round than most other teams, which will be a very good thing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment