Tampa Bay Sports Blog

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 bigger things were expected for them. The Bucs were 9-3 and seemingly on their way to a division title, much less a playoff birth. Fast forward to today and the Bulls capped off the month with a 41-14 win over Memphis in the St. Pete Bowl to help take the sting out of a hugely disappointing season. The Bucs pulled the ultimate choke job by going 0-4 and missing the playoffs after losing to a dismal Oakland Raider team.

The Bolts have gone 4-6-2 to this point, not great I know, but after stringing off three straight wins, look much better than they did a month ago. Now don’t get me wrong, the Lightning still are holding the crown of worst in Tampa, but after a home and away sweep of Florida and a 2-0 shutout win on the road against a very good Pittsburg Penguin team, there is a glimmer of hope for the first time in a long time for this team. The defense is still allowing too many shots on goal, but is getting better. The offense has come alive as Vinny and Marty have begun to light up the nets a little and  look much more fluid on the ice than they have all season.

As stated already, they are still the worst in Tampa, but they may not hold that title for too much longer if they keep up with these strange winning ways. They finish off the month of December at home against the Montreal Canadiens and could be starting the new year off on the right foot as the season rolls on. If the Lightning can pull themselves out of the bottom of the heap and even raise themselves into playoff contention, the argument could leave the Bulls and Bucs battling it out for worst in show here. It would be nice to see that happen.

Technorati Tags: Florida Panthers, Martin St. Louis, Memphis Tigers, Montreal Canadiens, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburg Penguins, St. Petersburg Bowl, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning, USF Bulls, Vinny Lecavalier

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 Marty needed a break after scoring and the rest of the team must have stayed in Montreal celebrating their last win. Mike Smith played very well, stopping 31 of 32 shots on goal, but didn’t got nooffensive help throughout the game. He can’t do it alone and that’s the position got put into on Saturday night. The next game is Thursday night at home against Colorado. What’s the deal with the weirdo schedule in the NHL by the way. Five days off between games? The NHL is running itself into the ground with all this strange crap that they do and it’s sad to see such a great sport being mismanaged in this way. I’m going to try to make it to the game Thursday and get a feel from some of the fans to see how they view this franchise right now. I know I don’t have much confidence in this group right now and I’m not seeing any end to this crap in the near future either.

Technorati Tags: Colorado Avalanche, Martin St. Louis, Mike Smith, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vinny Lecavalier

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 looked very good stopping 31 of 32 shots against a good Canadiens team. These are the types of performances we hoped to get from the veteran goalie when he signed and he delivered tonight. Marty added a second goal in the second period to put the Bolts up 3-1 and that’s how it would end. At this point we’re all just looking for anything positive from this team and they gave us something to grab onto, even if it’s just for a minute. I would still like to see the defense give up less shots and the offense shoot more, I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll take any win we can get right now. Winning 3-1 while getting outshot 32 to 22 is good enough, but it’s not gonna get you very far. Maybe Marty and Vinny can start putting the offense together now that we know they’re capable of and that would bleed out to the rest of the team in every aspect. It would be a lot easier to play defense with the offense being more aggressive and the goaltending would then become better also. Ok, I’ll stop with the negativity and take the win.

Technorati Tags: Barry Melrose, Martin St. Louis, Montreal Canadiens, Olaf Kolzig, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vinny Lecavalier