Game 23: Tampa Bay at Colorado

Well, that was a miserable little game. Tampa Bay lost to Colorado 4-3. Don't be fooled by the score - it wasn't that close a game until about 10 minutes left in the third.

I'd forgotten just how gushy the Colorado announcers were. They take positive spin and run with it for as far as they can. I mean, they can take a criticism and turn it into a compliment. It's really kind of scary. It did make me a bit nostalgic for the Western Conference, annoying as they were and always have been.

Interestingly enough, they were the first guys to not be all over Steven Stamkos, and how wonderful he is. Instead, there was some serious man-crushing on Lecavalier after he scored his goal - who wasn't having his best game. But then, neither was most of the team.

The fact that half the team seemed pretty listless sort of made me wonder if a cold or flu is making the rounds. It's that time of year, after all. Sure, they played in Minnesota yesterday afternoon, and then played tonight. And sure, the time change (9 pm start Eastern time) might've thrown them off. And yeah, Denver - which is in the plains, by the way, and not in the mountains - is a mile above sea level. But I've watched teams play in the Western Conference for nine seasons, who have had much more difficult travel schedules - and usually play at a lot closer to sea level - do much better than the Lightning did tonight.

Kolzig was one who definitely wasn't at his best. Neither, as I'd said, was Lecavalier, nor Eminger, Vrbata, Meszaros, Jokinen, and a couple of others. They all looked seriously out of it to me. Although Lecavalier got a little more focus after getting hit in the face twice - once by a stick during a face off and once by a puck flipped up by St. Louis (I think) within a couple of minutes of each other.

Lecavalier ought to consider a half-shield - to protect his eyes, if nothing else. But he's so tall that probably not a lot of stuff ends up near his eyes most of the time, so I guess it's something of a toss-up. Maybe.

About the only thing that worked for Tampa Bay tonight was their power play. How that happened, I have no idea. But I'm not complaining. It was the only thing that kept them competitve - other than Smith, of course.

Smith ended up with the loss on his record even tho Kolzig started the game and let in 3 of the 4 goals. It's like baseball in that the pitcher (or goalie) of record is the one who gets the game winner scored on them. Smith let in what ended up being the game winning 4th goal.

They don't play for a couple of days, so hopefully they'll have a little down time. If people are sick, sleep is probably the best thing for them. So we'll see how the game goes in Philly on Tuesday.

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