Quick Strikes: Owner Jeff Vinik sends a letter to the Tampa Bay season ticket holders

The Bolts

The Tampa Bay Lightning got some positive new additions to the lineup as they graduated some players from within. One of those players was Adam Erne, whose player grades are now available. [Raw Charge]

In the early part of the season, he was frequently a healthy scratch as Mathieu Joseph surpassed him on the depth chart and Ryan Callahan continued to play on the fourth line. But every time Erne drew into the game either due to injury or the coaches giving a player a night off, he made an impact. By the end of December, he was making too strong a case for regular minutes to be ignored.

After a disappointing end to the season, team owner Jeff Vinik sent a letter to all season ticket holders acknowledging the disappointment of the early end to the season. He stated explicitly at the end that he and the rest of the organization will not overreact to what happened this year.

The Prospects

The Crunch are doing a cool series where you can learn about the players’ hometowns. This one features Dennis Yan who is from Moscow.

The Solar Bears lost 4-0 to the Everblades last night putting them one loss away from heading home for the summer as they are now down 3-1 in the series.

Goaltender Callum Booth turned aside all 33 shots he faced as the Orlando Solar Bears (5-4) saw their season pushed to the limit, falling 4-0 to the Florida Everblades (7-3) in Game 4 of the South Division Finals on Thursday night at Amway Center. Orlando now trails the best-of-seven series 3-1, with Game 5 set for Friday, May 3 at 7 p.m. on home ice.

The Game

It was a blockbuster night for women’s hockey as over 200 players signed and released a statement saying they will not play in a north american league next year so long as they are not given the proper resources worthy of a professional league. They are tired of the slow, and sometimes backward, march to better wages and a more stable league situation. They want this fixed now. [The Ice Garden]

The Boston Bruins tied their series with the Columbus Blue Jackets at two games winning 4-1 on the road. Head over to SCOC for the details.

Everyone was waiting for the Bruins’ big guys to come through, and they did tonight. Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak were huge, combining for three goals. Pastrnak still had his “what the...?” moments, particularly whiffing on a few stickhandles and passes, but his shot was still wicked enough to be effective.

The Avalanche also evened their series with the Sharks at two games as Philip Grubauer posted a shutout leading his team to a 3-0 victory. Mile High Hockey has the recap.

The Avalanche showed their resolve by responding to Tuesday’s loss with strong play and earned the victory. Philipp Grubauer’s consistent performance in net was a huge factor as the goaltender stopped 32 shots in his first playoff shutout of his career.

Two trades later, Adam Fox finally arrived on the team he wanted to play for, the New York Rangers. He’s signed an entry-level contract that will kick in for next season.

The WHL had their bantam draft yesterday. Why is this important? Because Western Canadian parents come up with the weirdest first names and they seem to get worse every year.