The better team wins
For a period and a few minutes, the Lightning and Senators were going toe to toe. For a period and a few minutes, this looked like an epic in the making.
But emotions started running high on ice and instead of letting the game progress uninterrupted, there was somewhat of a rare occurrence:
The officials stepped in.
And after a few failed power play attempts by both teams, the Senators notched one, then another, then another, then another. In the span of a period and a half, the Senators scored 4 unanswered goals and the Lightning were shell shocked. They were flat-out schooled (again) by the Senators.
This time, you weren’t distracted by the sideshow of emotions running high out there. This time, you actually saw a hockey game with one team playing with more skill, determination, machismo and chaputz while the other played absent-mindedly and lackluster. This time, the game wasn’t ruled by “let’em play and the chips will fall where they may” bullshit from Kerry Fraser and crew.
It was an NHL playoff game and a resounding defeat at the hands of the Ottawa Senators. That’s all there is to it.
In the final minutes of what may very likely be the final home game of the 2005-06 Lightning season, the once-rocking home crowd were aloof and the silence was deafening. While the hunger of rookie Paul Ranger was clearly evident, it was also clearly evident the fire was out for the majority of the Lightning roster. The camera panned the Lightning bench during a stoppage in the games waning moments and you could see the roster tuckered out and searching for something, anything, to rally around.
…just as it’s been the case more times than not since the Olympic Break concluded.
5-2 the final at Times Palace. Ottawa hosts game five on Saturday at 6:30 PM. The Lightning’s goals were scored by Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards (both of whom owe huge credit to the aforementioned Ranger). Both goals can be argued up and down — did Marty interfer with Emery? Should Richards have been sent to the box along with Eaves? — but matter little in the end.
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April 28th, 2006 at 12:15 am
“Back-to-back” horrible games. I’ve been at the games, so don’t know what the commentators have been saying, but from what I’m seeing, it’s hard to imagine that Prospal, Modin and Sarich could play any worse. And Boyle is not far behind. Torterella must be going crazy trying to figure out what has gotten into these four guys.
Sarich looks lost, constantly out of position, beaten to lose pucks, and when he does have the puck, it appears that he is simply throwing it in some direction hoping it ends up on the stick of a Lightning player (which it generally does not).
And the numbers really confirm what I’ve seen as to how poorly the other three guys I’ve mentioned are playing. Consider this. Over the last two games:
(1) Prospal and Modin have combined for 67:24 of ice time (with 17:49 of that on the power play) in the two games, almost 3 times as much as Artyukhin (23:04 / 5:03). But Artyukhin with 5 shots has as many shots on goal as the other two have combined. In fact, Prospal has no shots on goal in almost 33 minutes on the ice. Plus, Artyukhin has two takeaways and no giveaways while Prospal and Modin have combined for 0 takes and 5 gives. And this ignores the number of times Prospal and Modin are simply beaten to lose pucks. I actually found myself hoping that when Prospal was dumped on his head by an Ottawa player tonight that it would get him going — but it didn’t!
(2) Boyle and Ranger have relatively similar ice time (including on the power play), with a slight edge to Boyle, but Ranger has 4 more SOGs and 4 fewer gives than Boyle.
When Artyukhin and Ranger are outplaying veterans who are supposed to be among the guys who step it up this time of year, something is very wrong.
As for the other leaders — Vinny, St. Louis, Richards and Fedetenko, they seem to be giving a full effort (especially Fedetenko) and playing reasonably well (although I thought Vinny was off tonight). But they are simply not getting enough help to make it pay off and looked frustrated in the third period tonight.
The goaltending is about what we should have expected. Mediocre — occasional big saves but not enough to really inspire confidence. It’s just hard to be too harsh with them when the guys in front give them so little support and Ottawa seems to have way too many easy opportunities.
Anyway, we probably have seen the last home game for this year, and it will be a long off-season.
April 28th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Pavel Kubina and Fredrik Modin were skating around as if they were trying to catch butterflies.
Darryl Sydor was skating around as if he were watching Kubina and Modin.
April 28th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
A couple of comments from an outsider’s perspective:
- while the goaltanding for the Bolts has not been good it was wrong of Tortorella to pin the goat horns on Graham. Of the four goals scored on him last night only the Phillips goal was weak. Spezza took advantage of a forward playing defence and got Graham moving to his left and put a great shot inside the post to his right. Heatley scored on a tic-tac-toe passing play from Spezza to Havlat to Heatley. Finally Havlat was left all alone in the slot to take a perfect pass from in behind the net. All three were much more the result of poor team play in front of the goalie than any fault of the goalie.
- from a Sens fan perspective the three most dangerous Bolts this series have been Lecavalier, St. Louis and Boyle. All three have been creating havoc in the Sens end. Part of the reason for Rangers success is that the Sens have been having to key on Boyle. As for Modin and Prospal I have to agree that they have been exremely disappointing.
- there is a definite psychological edge in favor of the Sens. When they fall behind they seem confident that they will be able to come back, while the reverse seems to hold true for the Bolts. For the Sens this is the reverse of the situation with the Leafs for many years
- finally I would suggest that the main reason for the 3-1 series lead by the Sens has not been due to a lack of effort by the Bolts, but rather a skill advantage to the Sens. For the majority of time in the series the Bolts have outworked the Sens, ie. generally the first to loose puck and winning battles on the boards, but the Sens have been much better at converting those opportunities they do generate. For example in the first period the Bolts spent almost the entire 20 minutes in the Sens end but only came out with a 2-1 lead as Spezza scored on the one chance he had.
April 28th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Ken —
I agree with most of what you said. Takign out Grahame in favor of Burke is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic last night.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I think it’s entirely possible that the Lightning have been a very poor defensive club this year. Grahame generally gets blamed because it’s difficult to distinguish bad goaltending from bad defense.
The Lightning are great at preventing shots — top five team in the NHL in shots allowed. But I think the shots they do give up are too high quality. The exact opposite is true for their offense — top five team in SOG but poor shooting %.
I don’t know why this is. The overall effect is that the Lightning have been a poor 5×5 team this year. This year they were -19 even strength. In 2004 they were +40. What a difference!
Can losing Lukowich make that big a difference? Bottom line - I think Grahame takes receives more blame than he deserves.
April 28th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Not just Lukowich but also Cullimore.
The defense was a huge problem while others saw it as an asset why Grahame and Burke’s stats were middle of the pack instead of lower. It can be looked at conversely — Though I think I’d prefer not to look at it that way.
There were a lot of shots that Grahame faced, but there were too many softies and questionable goals that he allowed. Too many misplayed items in the net too (how many of you remember Heatly’s SH breakaway in October? It ended up being an empty net goal (I think Alfredsson got credit for it)? Grahame was in another state trying to cover that thing…