Preseason game 3: NY Rangers at Tampa Bay

Preseason hockey is an interesting thing. Every night the lineups are different, so you're never quite sure what you're going to get. I would think that that would make decisions about who should stay and who should go more difficult. But then, I'm not a coach, either.

I've never had any interest in coaching hockey - I'd much rather coach football. There's a huge difference in how to coach hockey players and football players, but I won't get into that here. There's a completely different mentality going on in football that would make it difficult for me to coach hockey. But I'll stop now since I don't want to offend any hockey players that might be reading this.

The Lightning won last night against the NY Rangers 3-2. It was a pretty solid game, and a lot more disciplined - at least, on the Lightning side, anyways. The Ranger didn't fare so well during the second period, however. Shots for Tampa were way down from the night before, too.

Stamkos got his first goal as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning, St. Louis got his first goal, Jokinen was all over the place - but in a good way, and Smith was solid in net. Overall, it was a pretty good effort. Can't really complain about that.

What I can complain about, tho, is the fact that they're playing the Rangers twice this preseason when they play them again twice in Europe in a week and a half. Who thought of this schedule, anyways? Would it have been so hard to play Ottawa instead? I mean, having two teams who hadn't played against each other since last season meet up in Prague to open this season would've added to the excitement.

I don't have a marketing degree - heck, I don't even have a business degree - but even I can come up with better than that.

So Tampa Bay plays the Rangers at MSG tomorrow night, and then it's on to Berlin, Bratislava, and finally Prague. That's a road trip that I really would've like to have gone on. Hopefully, the two preseason European games will be broadcast in some fashion. If anyone knows anything about that, please let me know. Thanks!

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