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Quick Strikes: They lost by how many to Vancouver??

The Bolts

Last year, the Tampa Bay Lightning finished 40 points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks. They had 23 more wins (I know the math doesn’t add up, it’s because of overtime points, okay).

As of today, the Canucks are two points ahead of the Lightning following a 4-1 win in Tampa on Thursday night. The Lightning went into the third period with a slim 1-0 lead, but left it losers after surrendering four unanswered goals (for the record, two were empty-netters).

The Lightning had six chances on the power play last night, but came away with zero conversions. Funny how that’s the thing that’s struggling, when last year it was the penalty kill that sucked. Funnily enough, the Lightning are now 9/9 on the PK this season.

Matthew Esteves has the full recap. [Raw Charge]

Tampa Bay led in every statistical category you’d want a team to lead in; except goals scored. They controlled possession (65%), led in scoring chances (37 to 14), high danger scoring chances (16 to 2), and shots (34 to 28). Vancouver couldn’t maintain consistent pressure inside the Lightning zone, but all it took was a fluke deflection and a gifted turnover to throw away a good performance for Tampa Bay.

Continuing on the game, Dave Mishkin gives his thoughts on the performance from Thursday night, and how tough it is to get results when you’re not playing at your best, even if you’re better on paper. [NHL dot com]

Hockey can be a strange game. In their opener against Florida, the Lightning endured long stretches of subpar play but won. They were vastly better against Vancouver but lost. They’ll look to build off those positive aspects of their game when they host Columbus on Saturday.

November 17th! Mark your calendar!

It’s hard to watch the entire league at once. Heck, there were 12 games on last night! So to help with that, yours truly will be writing a one-pager recap of how each team in the Eastern Conference’s week has gone. We ranked them and called them Power Rankings, but it’s really not about that. Hope you enjoy! [Raw Charge]

Not only do they have the best record in the East, but they’ve done it by out-shooting and out-working their opponents. Carolina have beaten the New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucksin blow-outs, but that’s nothing to write home about. However, on Tuesday, they beat the Columbus Blue Jackets pretty handily. Sebastian Aho is the team’s first-line center and he looks amazing.

And if you’re interested in the West, you can find that one over at MileHighHockey.com [Mile High Hockey]

10. The Ducks may be at the top of the Conference, but it’s been on pure luck. Despite wins over San Jose, Arizona, and Detroit, the Ducks are near, or at the bottom of the league in terms of every shot differential metric (shots, shot attempts, fenwick, expected goals, all of them).

The Prospects

The Syracuse Crunch’s home opener is just one day away, and it’s getting lots of people in the city, and alumni around the world very excited. Here’s a taste of the buzz from yesterday.

Crunch team reporter and broadcaster Lukas Favale went on local TV and did a hit promoting the 25th season of the Crunch. [Local SYR]

“It’s a young team but I think as we see the year go along, and I think we have an exciting team and a pretty good year coming up for the Crunch,” he said.

Almuni defenseman Radko Gudas sent his regards!

And so did familiar face Yanni Gourde!

Bonus points to all of you who remember Mathieu Darsh! What a throwback.

The Game

SensPickTracker.com is my new favourite website. Their colour scheme is to die for!

Patrick Maroon came home this season. Here is his story. [ESPN]

“I love every birthday,” the elder Maroon says. “But Anthony knew, and I knew, that after his birthday, Daddy was leaving. He cried a lot. I cried a lot. It sucks.” It only got worse as Anthony got older. “Because that’s when he really started to understand,” Maroon says.

Way to go, Russian dude! If she’s willing to come onto the ice for you, even though she’s clearly afraid of falling, she’s definitely a keeper!

Tom Dundon is the boss and so far, his decisiveness has payed off. A column: [Canes Country]

And “do things” he’s done. He wanted to pay homage to the franchise’s history and did so by adding a Hartford Whalers alternate jersey. While he didn’t get everything he wanted (see: the videoboard, which will be coming albeit not on the accelerated), Dundon has kicked open the doors of PNC Arena and took over like an episode of Fixer Upper, making changes in the arena and on the ice.

Matt Murray is skating again with his team, days after suffering a concussion. How soon before he’s out playing games? [Pensburgh]

This comes as somewhat of a surprise given Murray was only diagnosed with a concussion two days ago, but it is a positive sign nonetheless. Any thoughts of Murray perhaps returning to game action tonight were quickly squashed by Sullivan when he spoke to the media after practice.

Ben Street has been in the NHL for a while, if I remember correctly. Really happy for him to finally get that elusive first goal puck.

Toronto Maple Leafs fans are trying really hard to find ways to get Ron Hainsey off the Leafs’ top pair. Is Travis Dermott the guy? Can he play the right side? Maaaaybeee????? [Pension Plan Puppets]

Reality, however, is often very interesting. If you look, you will see a carefully managed usage of both players that I expect to result in Dermott gradually walking from the wading end of the pool to the deep end, and somewhere in the middle, he’ll meet Hainsey coming back the other way. They are already closer than you think, if all you’ve been looking at is the lineup chart.

Highlight of the Night: Because there were 12 games on the schedule last night, there were a lot of great goals. I couldn’t pick, so here are them all.

Entry 1: Nate, you nasty.

Entry 2: 9 goals in 5 games.

Entry 3: Pasta

Entry 4: I…I don’t even know your name.

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