The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the New York Rangers 2-1 in regulation.
It was like Jekyll and Hyde out there. The first period, the Lightning dominated. The second period, they were barely in the game. The third period, well, it depended on what was going on.
While the team won and swept the season series with the Rangers, they were very inconsistent. Their power play wasn’t great, but the penalty kill was good defensively. They were either good defensively at even strength, or good offensively at even strength – never both. It was always either one or the other.
The officiating was bad for both teams as well. How could the Brandon Prust goal be allowed to stand when it was clearly goaltender interference? And how could Brandon Dubinsky get called for interference on Randy Jones when nothing really happened at all?
But I guess most afternoon games aren’t typically that great, generally speaking.
Vincent Lecavalier had a good game. He scored his seventh goal, and has 12 points, in the last nine games. He was definitely a force out on the ice for this game.
Dwayne Roloson kept this team in the game. He was consistently good. And he wasn’t frazzled when Prust ran him, which had happened in previous games. So he was definitely a bright spot on the team.
The odd stat was that the Lightning had a total of 19 shots on goal, which is pretty low for them. Eric Brewer had six hits for the game, however, and Dominic Moore was 8 of 14 (57%) in the faceoff circle when the entire team’s faceoff win average was 35%. And Nate Thompson seemed to be just about everywhere on the ice.
The best stat of all, though, is that this puts the Lightning five points ahead of the Washington Capitals in the Southeast Division standings.
The next Lightning game is Wednesday, 2 March, at the New Jersey Devils. Game time is 7 pm Eastern. The Raw Charge game thread will open at 6:30 – come join us then!
Lightning vs Rangers boxscore [TSN]
Lightning vs Rangers coverage [SB Nation]
Blueshirt Banter [SB Nation]
