Sign in Subscribe
Front Page

Quick Strikes: The Lightning's historic season has ended

Oye, vey....

The Lightning

-The Tampa Bay Lightning took on the Columbus Blue Jackets in a do-or-die game four last night. Sadly for everyone involved on our side of things, the results...weren’t...great. In an effort to hold off the encroaching darkness, here’s a look at what happened that was actually good last night:

-Going into last night’s game, what exactly was going wrong for the Bolts? Well, here’s the other side of things:

-And here’s ours:

You’ve also heard lots of other things about why that is happening from lots of different places. The Lightning are getting run out of the building. They’re getting their asses kicked. They’re getting curb stomped. They’re gutless. They’re chokers. Etc. Etc. Etc.

All of it is nonsense.

-Tampa will pick at 27 in this year’s draft:

I want to take a second to ask y’all to take care of yourselves today, okay? Okay.

The Crunch

-The Syracuse Crunch is gearing up for their own playoffs. Their first round matchup with Cleveland starts Friday in Syracuse. The slate for the AHL of teams with NHL parent clubs slugging it out is surprisingly full.

-Syracuse and Cleveland as hockey cities have a little bit of playoff history already:

-Syracuse is getting ready to support its team:

-Going into the playoffs, the Crunch are ranked at second in Patrick Williams’ Power Rankings.

They face the Cleveland Monsters in the AHL version of this Columbus-Tampa Bay organizational match-up. Cleveland is by no means an easy match-up, but Syracuse’s exceptional special-teams play is a major asset going into the postseason. The Crunch are a bona fide Calder Cup contender.

-En route to their North Division championship, Syracuse tied or set multiple team records.

Their 47 wins and 102 points are tied for the most in franchise history, but they are the most in a 76-game schedule; their previous mark was set during an 80-game season. Because of that, the Crunch’s 0.671 points percentage is a new team record, surpassing last year’s 0.658. The Crunch ended the season at 47-21-4-4 and their 25 losses (L+OTL) ties for the fewest in franchise history.

-The Crunch are not very good at working at other jobs, but it sure is funny watching them try!

The Solar Bears

The Orlando Solar Bears are looking at a potentially pivotal game three tonight. Their series is currently tied 1-1.

The Prospects

-Lightning prospect Sammy Walker got his pretty trophy yesterday for B1G Freshman of the Year.

The Others

-Does anyone else keep forgetting we have an expansion draft thing to worry about eventually? I sure do.

-The New York Rangers have a draft pick now:

-The LA Kings named Todd McLellan head coach yesterday.

Read next

Comments ()