Tampa Bay Sports Blog

Game 1 – St Louis:
Meeting Sully Friday before the game was interesting.  The team has had to go through several transitions this season:  Melrose – Tocchet – Shoulder Surgeries (defenseman revolving door) – Trade Deadline.  We heard the game plan, and then we heard about what to look for on the ice from both teams.  [...]

The game against Pittsburgh included terrible passing by both teams – the bounces and breaks all seemed to go the Penguin’s way. Fleury had 33-shots fired at him and he made some very good saves giving up only 1-goal. Ramo also had 33-shots fired at him but there was no defense to help [...]

It’s time for the Bolts to admit that this is a rebuilding year and just start heaving the young players into the lineup to take their lumps. It’s time for the youngsters to show and prove. I have seen enough from this team this year to know that they are not going to improve behind [...]

The Bolts have been a bad team for a couple seasons now and they have become a laughing stock inside the NHL with the circus that they created since acquired by Oren Koules. They are playing better lately but still aren’t anywhere close to the realm of contention and yet I still believe they will [...]

Martin St. Louis might well be the smallest player in the NHL, but he’s got more heart than anyone playing today. The Bolts have stepped up their game and have wiggled their way out of the bottom of the Southeastern Division of the Eastern Conference. This is no coincidence to me either that the Lightning [...]

The Bolts have been the cellar dwellers of Tampa Bay for over a year now and things weren’t looking too good going forward. Starting the month of December the Lightning were 4-10-7 and things were looking as ugly as ever throughout the organization. The USF Bulls were 7-5 and were possibly the most disappointing team in Tampa as much [...]

I’m glad the Bolts didn’t tease us too much by winning again. I was wondering how they would follow up that win in Montreal and they took all the drama out of it real quick. They came out flat and never got anything going in their 2-0 shutout loss in Ottawa. I guess Vinny and [...]

The Bolts must have taken all the Barry Melrose crap to heart as they finally decided to play some Hockey tonight. They came out fired up on the road and scored twice in the first period behind goals from Marty and Vinny to take a 2-1 lead. That’s all Olaf Kolzig needed tonight as he [...]

   Well, how do I sum up the games the Bolts have played since I last discussed them? Oh yeah, they still suck! In the last post we had the Lightning had just got beat up by the Devils. Since then they have lost four straight to the Rangers, Wild, Avalanche and Flyers. This streak includes [...]

   Man that was brutal. Olaf Kolzig got beat down quickly and the Bolts didn’t stand a chance from there. The Lightning looked bad in every way giving up 5 goals before answering with 3 quick scores in the second. Vrbata, St. Louis and Malone did what they could to get the Bolts back in [...]

   The Lightning finally got Rick Tocchet his first victory on Friday, yay! It was amazing, they won by more than one goal and they even stayed out of overtime and shootouts. Mike Smith stopped 34 of 35 and the Vinny’s chipped in 3 goals. Lecavalier had two goals and Prospal had one in their [...]

   The Bolts lost again tonight to the Panthers 4-3. If we can take anything out of this loss tonight, at home by the way, it’s the fact that the Bolts got 52 shots on goal tonight. I’m not going to make too much of it but they were way more aggressive tonight than in [...]

   Barry Melrose appeared on Ron MacLean’s Hockey Night in Canada and tried to explain his dismissal from the Lightning. I’ve posted to video below and I encourage you to watch it and see if you find it as entertaining as I do. Thanks to Puck Daddy by the way for the heads up on this. [...]

   The Lightning came out fired up and ready to prove something under new coach Rick Tocchet. They looked better but couldn’t pull out a win on the road, losing 3-2. It’s a tough go in Carolina as it is, and under a new coachthey did about as good as expected. The defense only allowed [...]

   The Bolts headed out on the road this week looking to improve on their problematic play away from the Forum. So far, not so good. They dropped the first game in New Jersey 3-2 in overtime. Thanks to the NHL’s idiotic system, the get a point for an overtime loss. Does anyone else think [...]

   The Bolts pulled out a nail-biter last night at home against Ottawa 3-2. The shootout ended with the same score of 3-2 behind Evgeny Artyukhin’s goal. Isn’t it great to have Arty back? I got to watch some of this game and I’m still catching on some of the other but I must say, [...]