The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Washington Capitals in overtime of Game 2 by a score of 3-2.
What can you say about Vincent Lecavalier that hasn’t already been said? Maybe his first time around, he wasn’t ready to be captain. But now, he’s as much a captain of this team as his idol Steve Yzerman was of his.
His first goal of the night was pretty-pretty-pretty. It was a one-timer from the right faceoff dot five-hole. You’ve got to love that.
And then his second – which was a far more difficult shot than you might think – was on the door-step and roofed right in to win the game. The set up by Teddy Purcell was perfect. Maybe it wasn’t a textbook pretty goal, but it went in and that’s all that mattered.
Martin St. Louis led all players (both teams) with eight shots on goal – and scored on top of that. Teddy Purcell, meanwhile, ended the night with two assists. Mattias Ohlund had six blocked shots, while Eric Brewer had four hits. Adam Hall was 70% (7 of 10) in the faceoff circle.
Now that the Lightning are now up 2-0 in the series, remember that there’s still a lot of hockey left to be played. And some serious issues to be addressed. Like having only nine shots on goal in the first two periods of play in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
That’s definitely not a great statistic. Part of the reason the Lightning have struggled in these playoff games is due to not shooting as much as they had been in the regular season. While the most important statistic are the numbers on the scoreboard, not getting shots on net is a worrying trend.
Sloppy play has resulted in Caps goals as well. The Lightning need to tighten up a bit more or they’ll let the Caps back into this series. In theory, winning in four or five games – we can hope! – would benefit the team. They could definitely use a rest – particularly Dwayne Roloson. But the reality is, they’re in a groove, and you don’t want to break the patter that they’re in.
Also, let’s not forget what happened the last time these two teams met in playoffs. The Caps won the first two games of that series, and then the Lightning came back and won the next four. We should all hope that the tables haven’t been reversed with the Bolts having won the first two games of this series.
Game 3 in Tampa will be on Tuesday, 3 May. Game time is early – 6:30 pm ET. The Raw Charge game thread will be ready for business at 5:30. So if you’re not going to the game, come hang out with us!
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