One of Boltsmag’s longtime readers introduced me to a game that he and a few local bloggers up north put together for Washington Capitals fans and Toronto Maple Leaf fans. It’s called Pick SPG and it’s a pick’em game but not of the traditional sort where you pick the winner of games…

Nope, you’re picking production:

SPG is an online game where you predict which players on your favorite NHL team will get the first shot on net, take the first penalty, and score the first goal for each period in a game, including overtime & the shootout.

There’s more information about the game on the SPG website. Gary would love to add more teams (the Lightning specifically) but there has to be enough interest in order to do it… That and someone dedicated to administrate additional teams.

I watched parts of the Lightning game last night… Parts. Oddly it was always the parts where the Lightning stood around and couldn’t move the puck up ice. They played a poor mans dump-and-chase and had no desire to do much more than give the Capitals what amounted to even-strength power play opportunities.

John Tortorella is pissed and wants “no excuses” for the loss. Of course, he wouldn’t flat out call his team pathetic or inept… But that’s exactly how they are playing. There’s a lack of passion once you get below Lecavalier, St. Louis, Richards and Prospal. Jan Hlavac is doing so poorly he’s been demoted to the fourth line (note to my friend Jes Golbez — it appears you were right when you scorned the addition of Hlavac this summer).

I feel flat out sorry for Karri Ramo who has played his ass off the last few games. Here’s a 21 year old goaltender standing toe-to-toe with one of the NHL’s elite netminders in Olaf Kolzig and what’s happening? His team gives up in front of him.

Read that again: his team gives up in front of him.

That’s the only way to term last night. They flat out gave up. I won’t say that everyone on ice didn’t try or put an effort out there. They did, however, fail to look like they were competing in the end. And the lame duck season will continue unless the ownership situation solidifies soon (meaning don’t expect cavalry to swoop in via a trade or management change any time soon).

Meanwhile, Caps land is rejoicing a new found glory in their new coach… Oh, and the win. RJ can find two positives — and only two and that’s not surprising. Ramo, Lecavalier, and then suckage… that was last night.

I didn’t see this one and can’t give individual assessment3 or team assessment, but Dave Andreychuk is on fire — having scored four goals in two games (three points in tonights effort). Vincent Lecavalier scored #21 on the season and Fredrik Modin, Cory Stillman, Ruslan Fedotenko and Martin St. Louis rounded out scoring for Tampa Bay

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 18 of 21 shots.