Lightning in La-La Land

Yeah, yeah... It's pre-season and it don't mean jack...

But the Lightning were listless tonight after a few days rest - falling to opening-night rival Carolina 5-2. Ruslan Fedotenko and Pavel Kubina accounted for the Lightning goals and Daryl Sydor notched a pair of assists.

I don't know exactly what John Tortorella wanted to focus on with the Bolts in tonights game but it wasn't shooting. The Lightning, over the course fo three periods, notched only 15 shots on goal. This was a trend when the Springfield-bound prospects were playing games against mostly-NHL-Calibre players a few days back, I would not expect it to be the same just five days before Opening Night.

Andy Rogers started tonight in the #6 defensiveman slot, he was a minus 1 with 4 PIM's with 15:48 of ice time. Sean Burke gets the loss while stopping 23 of 28 shots.

The Lightning also lost the shootout -- 1-0. Cam Ward stopped the Lightning snipers dead while Rod Brind'Amour notched the lone goal for Carolina.