Two teams are battling it out for the Stanley Cup on catfish-laden ice. Unfortunately, the Tampa Bay Lightning are not one of those two teams. In order to fill the void for Lightning fans, Raw Charge is breaking down the past season team by team to see who helped and who hurt the season.
Opponent: Chicago Blackhawks
Games:
January, 24 2017 at Chicago – Tampa 5, Chicago 2
March, 27 2017 at Tampa – Tampa 5, Chicago 4
Boxscore:
Goals: Jonathan Drouin (2), Tyler Johnson (2), Brian Boyle, Yanni Gourde, Nikita Kucherov, Nikita Nesterov, Ondrej Palat, Anton Stralman
Assists: Victor Hedman (3), Alex Killorn (3), Valtteri Filppula (2), Nikita Kucherov (2), Brian Boyle, Greg McKegg, Ondrej Palat, Anton Stralman
Save Percentage:
Andrei Vasilevskiy, .908 SV% (allowed 6 goals on 65 shots)
Peter Budaj, 1.000% SV% (allowed 0 goals on 3 shots)
Notes from the Previews:
January 24th – @BethelHub, Remember 2015 and get mad
“At this point in the season there is reason to lose hope in the Bolts. It seems fans now dread watching the games. Is it because this lackluster season is unprecedented? Or because the losses seem so futile? Regardless of the numerous reasons why Tampa Bay has under-performed, they have underwhelmed just about everyone. The Bolts have gone from cup contenders to a lottery pick possibility, and that doesn’t sit well with many fans.”
March 27th – @tanyazarek, Be our guests
“The Chicago Blackhawks must’ve gone fishing in Miami, because they played one of their worst games of the year. Apparently the Blackhawks are so defensively minded that they aren’t used to numbers over five against them — and they suffered their worst loss since 2011 (to Edmonton, 9-2), on the strength of a hat trick from former Bolt Jonathan Marchessault.”
Notes from the Recaps:
January 24th – @GeoFitz4, Tampa Bay Lightning bounce back with a 5-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks
“Feels good to finally put together a convincing win against a good team. My three stars on the night are Johnson, Killorn, and Vasilevskiy. Honorable mentions go to Boyle and Filppula. Johnson, Killorn, Boyle, and Filppula ended up with two points a piece on the night.
[…]
It remains to be seen if Yzerman will make a move to bolster the blue line. The Lightning do have time to show that they can right the ship and they’ll need to do it quickly. Some reinforcements up front are on the way as Point is expected back in the next week or so and Stamkos is still expected back in mid-March.”
March 28th: Clark J Brooks, Bolts mount comeback to win OT thriller, gain ground in playoff chase
“For those who have already declared this season a historic disappointment and that the remaining games lost any kind of significant meaning a month ago, the effort put forth by the Tampa Bay Lightning in tonight’s game must be confusing.”
Did Chicago hurt or help the Lightning?
Chicago helped the Lightning by giving up four points in the two game series. Being in opposite conferences, it didn’t much matter that the Lightning had to to overtime in the second game. Despite the huge disappointment of a season for the Lightning, they were somehow able to put it together against the team that beat them in the Stanley Cup Finals two seasons ago.
Trades:
Since we didn’t have cheap talent we wanted to get rid of or the salary cap room to relieve Chicago of their cap nightmare, the Lightning did not make any trades with the Blackhawks.
