On the day the Pirates invaded downtown Tampa, a few hundred miles to the north, the Tampa Bay Lightning invaded Philadelphia and pillaged the injury riddled Flyers…
Sean Burke registered the Lightning’s 2nd consecutive shutout and Freddie Modin scored a hat trick as the Lightning continue their streak — now 5-0-1 in the last 6 with 11 points — with a new found passion in play.
One can easily point to the fact the Lightning faced Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur on consecutive games and Antero Niitymaki landed himself in a pile of do-do having to face a frustrated Lightning offense that had produced 83 shots over the span of those two games and only scored 3 goals total. In this instance the Lightning piled on 30 shots — converting on six. Three of which were on the power play.
Martin St. Louis had 2 assists, Pavel Kubina notched 3 and rookie Ryan Craig had a goal and an assist.
All in all, it was a pillaging fo the Flyers in this matinee matchup…. The Lightning nw stand at 58 points…
Evgeny Artyukhin was the reason the Lightning opened scoring, driving hard at Antero. Niitymakii made the initial save but with a crowd around the net and Antero out of position, Dan Boyle (rumored replacement defensiveman for Team Canada at the Turin Olympics) capitalized on the loose puck… This kid is just as Balls-to-the-wall as Freddie Modin has been in his tenure witht he Lightning, if not more so.
Daryl Sydor went down with an injury however – and I admit ignorance in knowing what the injury was as the WMOR broadcast of the game absolutely reeked.
The Run continues…
