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# Tampa BAE Lightning: Morning Skate #1
- URL: https://www.bayareaexaminer.com/tampa-bae-lightning-morning-skate/
- Published: 2025-01-29T14:03:35.000Z
- Updated: 2025-01-29T14:03:35.000Z
- Description: Chat: Do we suck?
- Author: Collin Sherwin
- Tags: #Migrated-1792597384348, #Import 2026-10-21 15:44

*(In the spirit of trying something new, here is the Morning Skate! A brief news letter to start your day with some Lightning coverage)*

The Tampa Bay Lightning are 49 Games into their season with 33 games left in front of them how do things look? In a word, not great.

I feel like I’ve been wanting to write more and just been too busy, but what I watched inside Amalie Arena has me compelled. So, here we go.

#### Chat: Do we suck?

Our good friend Robert Steeg will often pop into the hockey game thread and ask “Chat do we suck?” and most times it could have been laughed off, but lately? Yeah, we kind of do.

In January, the Lightning are 6-8-1\. That’s bad. In those 9 losses, the common theme is a lack of scoring. Of those 9 games, just once have they scored more than 2 goals. In fact, 5 times they’ve scored once (or less).

That’s simply embarrassing. Especially when your GM goes out into the public and touts how effective the team has been. Which, sure OK. In the early part of the season you looked great and dominated the metrics.

But since January 1st, you’ve scored 43 goals and let 43 goals get scored on you. +/- is an imperfect stat for sure, but that’s not sustainable for a team that wants to make the playoffs. At a certain point, you need to get that trend going the other way and they just aren’t.

#### Standings: Points, Games in Hand

Since the Lightning had their home opener cancelled for hurricanes, there has been discussion about the number of Games in Hand they had on their opponents. They still kind of do, but if they keep dropping these games then it really won’t matter.

Lightning Radio Play-by-Play personality Dave Mishkin has a formula that has pretty much universally been proven very accurate when it comes to point standings and making the playoffs.

His calculation is simple 12 in 10—meaning you want to get 12 points for every 10 games played. Keeping that pace has pretty much guaranteed teams a play off spot in like the last 7-10 years.

Currently, the Bolts are at 55 points in 49 games played. At 50 games, you want to have 60 points. The Bolts, assuming they win on Thursday, will be 3 points behind that pace. With each victory giving 2 and the large slew of Atlantic Division opponents coming up, the Bolts are in danger of being in the wrong end of that 3 point split when the dust settles.

Bottom Line: the Lightning simply have to play better because reinforcements may not be coming on the trade deadline. And if you ask me, that’s fine.

The Lightning shouldn’t make big swings during this trade cycle. Why? Well, let’s save that for next time. Until then, Go Bolts!