Game 77 - Washington at Tampa Bay

Okay, I have a confession to make. I was watching the UNC-WSU men's basketball game while listening to the Lightning game. I was O-fer on the night, tho. I'd picked WSU in the upset, and Tampa Bay winning as well. A friend of mine is both a UNC fan and a Washington Caps fan, so I ended up losing all bragging rights on the night. Oh well, what can you do?

Not that I'm a WSU fan or anything. I prefer UW of the two major Washington State schools, but whatever. That's a whole 'nother story. And we're here to talk hockey, anyways, right?

I thought that the Lightning kind of had a slow start. The first period was more defensive than anything else, it seemed (or was that the first half of the basketball game...?). It picked up in the second period, tho.

And - I was reading the papers today (by the way, congrats to Tortorella & Sullivan for being named to the Team USA World Championships coaching staff), and Tortorella wasn't very happy with play in the third period. Yeah, it could've been better, but they played their best under the circumstances. I'm sure it's frustrating as a coach to see that sort of thing happen repeatedly, but such is life.

The scary part of the evening happened in overtime. The reason for the goal scored was that Boyle was taken out of the play. And Boyle was taken out of the play because he got nicked with a skate blade in the neck. Fortunately, he didn't even need stitches for the 4-5 inch cut, but still.
Boyle can't seem to catch a break this season. First, it was the freak skate falling accident that cut open his wrist during preseason - for which he had to have surgery. Then he comes back only to have to have surgery again on the same wrist for the same injury because things hadn't healed quite right. Then this last week he gets a skate boot in the helmet during practice, followed by the skate blade cutting his neck.

Maybe someone's trying to tell him something...? I don't know, but maybe it's lucky for him that the season's almost over. He should probably turn down any invitation to World Championships, too - just in case. You just never know where something like that might lead, so it's probably better to play it safe and lie low for a while until it passes over.

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