Game 66 - Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay

The Lightning lost another heart breaker last night. But, you know, I thought that it was a pretty good game. Sure, they lost in the last 5 minutes of it, but to keep both Crosby and Malkin off the scoreboard for 55 minutes isn't a bad thing.

I went to this game - one last home game before I have to go this weekend - and I thought the Lightning did a pretty good job. The first 10 minutes were a little shaky for them, and the last 5 were as well, but the game overall was pretty well-played defensively. They were aggressive, they played with emotion, they shot the puck - pretty much all you needed to do to win games except score. It's not their fault that Fleury was having a great game.

Lecavalier was having a rough night. I think not scoring a goal for 9 games previous is really starting to get to him. He's hesitating on shots, and second guessing his decisions - in general, he's just thinking too much about it. Shooting should be instinctive, and thinking about it just slows you down. He has a great shot, so he should use it. Maybe now that all of the team-related distractions are finally gone he'll have a better time of it.

I look at his scoring problem in one of two ways. One, you can work on your other skills until the shooting comes back around - which, in the end, can only make him a better player. And/or two, shooting is pretty much like passing in traffic. You're trying to get the puck to where you want to go in either case, and usually thru a small space both ways, so instead of looking to get something past the goalie he should be looking to hit the netting.

It's a small but significant change of focus, and Vinny's passing is still going great - I saw last night. I have no doubt that he'll start getting hat tricks left and right again soon. And who knows? Maybe he'll even manage to win the Art Ross by the end of the season. Stranger things have happened.

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