Tuesday’s game had nothing go write from teh get go. Tonights game seemed to reflect that as Sean Burke started between the pipes tonight for the Lightning. Aaron Ward scored on teh first shot fo the game, 23 seconds in and Anton Babchuk scored on a powre play only minutes afterwards. The two-Oh hole looked mighty formidable for the Lightning.
Yet they fought back…
Goals by Evgeny Artyukhin and Freddie Modin at the bottom half of the perido erased the whole and the game started looking like a mighty high scoring affair.
But when Eric Cole scored four minutes into the third period, Coach John Tortorella had seen enough. Sean Burke had again allowed 3 goals on eight shots. His night was over. Enter John Grahame…
And Exit the Lightning with two points, defeating the league leading Hurricanes 5-3 at Times Palace.
Dare I say it, Grahame was the difference maker as he closed out the game with 28 saves. Nary a shot got past his blocker. This was the ultimate redemption for blunders in Tuesday’s loss to the Devils.
Fun moments of the night were Artyukhin (or Artoo for short) coming full blast at Martin Gerber behind the Carolina net over and over again. Gerber took his dear sweet time clearing the puck and was the post boy for why running the goalie should be legal. Freddie Modin’s first goal was also something to savor as he powered to the net. Crashign the Net isn’t Lightning style but in this case — it worked just fine. Modin ended up with two goals on the night, Vaclav Prospal had one, as did Ruslan Fedotenko.
The Run blows on… 9-2-1 over the last 12, 19 points… But just one more game to go before the Olympic break pulls thsi (and other) teams to a standstill for two weeks.
