The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Minnesota Wild 3-1.
To me, this game had the air of a preseason game. No one wanted to exert themselves in case they might be hurt, so there wasn’t a lot of hitting. And, for the most part, everyone seemed to play pretty conservatively.
Now, the Wild, losing to the Lightning, were officially eliminated from playoffs. Of course, that was mathematically speaking. They’d been out of the running for quite a while unofficially speaking. And as we all know, the Lightning officially clinched a spot in playoffs in their previous game. So a relaxed sort of atmosphere should have been expected, I guess.
I had just been thinking that Sean Bergenheim‘s been quiet for a while when he scored in the third period. Adam Hall won a fantastic seven out of ten faceoffs on the afternoon. And Martin St. Louis, while not scoring any goals, had four shots and got an assist to give him 63 assists on the season.
And how much did this team miss Ryan Malone and Steve Downie while they were out? Downie got the game tying goal, while Malone got the game winning goal. Also; Downie has two goals in this last two games. So it’s definitely good to see them back in the lineup.
Including beating the Wild, the Lightning have won five four games in a row, and now have four games left in the season.
The next game is tomorrow, 3 April, at the Chicago Blackhawks. Game time is 7 pm Eastern. The Raw Charge game thread will open at 6:30 pm, so come join us.
