Up until June 7th, 2004 the Lightning had failed to put together back-to-back wins… It had been win-loss-win-loss during the Lightning / Flyers Eastern Conference final and during the Stanley Cup Championship versus the Calgary Flames.
That trend has continued even with a years hiatus of the NHL… The Lightning, coming off a back-to-earth loss to the Ottawa Senators last week at the St. Petersburg Times Forum, put up four unanswered goals in the 3rd period to lay waste to the New Jersey Devils in East Rutherford tonight. Dave Andreychuk decided to remind people he is not retired yet and notched two goals as part of the four-goal 3rd period spark.
Brad Richards notched three assists as the Modin – Richards – St. Louis line generated the Bolts first two goals (the first of which came 34 seconds into the game by Martin St. Louis).
It still wasn’t the dominating performance that one would expect form the bolts and Defense still looked questionable. That’s going to be an issue that will continue to dog the Lightning during the season – the question is how long?
