Sam Hitchcock: Bolts Coast Past Habs

The Lightning won, and there were improvements (the bar was set low with that Ottawa game), but I still saw too much woo(frank)ery going on to be comfortable with. There were still a lot of Hail Mary passes into the neutral zone which is a sign that the Bolts were often having trouble exiting the zone cleanly or penetrating the neutral zone in anything other than a piecemeal fashion.

I think Montreal looked like the better team for most of the game. If .969% Price had showed up to play, the Lightning would have taken another loss.

The PK looked good (it had to be).

The Stamkos-Point-Kucherov line continues to be effective (how could it not be? unless it's the playoffs, then....)

Keeping Palat and Johnson together is a good idea.

I don't know what his metrics showed, but Sergachev passed the eye test in this game.

That fourth line is a hot mess. I would much rather see Maroon - Paquette - Volkov or something else that doesn't involve so many pylons and stone hands. No offense to Verhageehatmbxq, but he hasn't blown my skirt up and doesn't seem to provide anything over Paquette (except cleaner play perhaps).

Was it a good game by the Bolts? No... but it was better-ish.


Wit and Vargheaheghage... eh... not a fan. Ceddy and Volkov or Raddysh would be better. Currently, that line is ...blegh.


Palat and Sergachev are looking better than last season, which is good.

Killorn is playing a better defensive forward game, which at this point should be his bread and butter.

And Stamkos is really winning me over this year, so far. He's working hard. It's good to see him leading by example.

All that said, there's still way too much searching for the pretty play/going full-on riverboat gambler for my liking.

Stamkos looked great! Point, not so much.

But, plenty to beat the habs. Nice win!

The Lightning won, and there were improvements (the bar was set low with that Ottawa game), but I still saw too much woo(frank)ery going on to be comfortable with. There were still a lot of Hail Mary passes into the neutral zone which is a sign that the Bolts were often having trouble exiting the zone cleanly or penetrating the neutral zone in anything other than a piecemeal fashion.

I think Montreal looked like the better team for most of the game. If .969% Price had showed up to play, the Lightning would have taken another loss.

The PK looked good (it had to be).

The Stamkos-Point-Kucherov line continues to be effective (how could it not be? unless it's the playoffs, then....)

Keeping Palat and Johnson together is a good idea.

I don't know what his metrics showed, but Sergachev passed the eye test in this game.

That fourth line is a hot mess. I would much rather see Maroon - Paquette - Volkov or something else that doesn't involve so many pylons and stone hands. No offense to Verhageehatmbxq, but he hasn't blown my skirt up and doesn't seem to provide anything over Paquette (except cleaner play perhaps).
- GalacticStone

It was a close game. Habs looked like the better team for much of the first period but couldn't score more than one goal. Tampa took advantage of a small relapse by the Habs in the 2nd and well....can't afford that vs such a talented team.

Vasilevsky was great as usual but the Canadiens could have made life a little harder for him.

Oh well, on to the next one! Cheers!