Tampa BAE Lightning Post Mortem: Basic Struggles

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedLightning lose again
Excuses become exhausting
Bad until you're not

The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn’t sustain another win and lost to the Capitals in OT. Another game where they strike first, get the lead back, and then fart it away. Check out the OT summary from the NHL.

A lost face-off by your no. 1 Center let the Capitals dictate OT. Blame the stupid OT rules all you want, but here’s the truth: The Lightning are just bad at winning face-offs. They rank 31 out of 32 teams. The inability to control the puck off the face-off dot makes doing almost anything else incredibly difficult—especially in OT.

And, sure, you can pick apart other parts of the game (Vasy caught looking the wrong way, Lilleberg taking bad penalties AGAIN, Hedman losing contain on the Caps PPG etc.), but when you can’t win face-offs consistently none of that really matters to me.

Face-offs shouldn’t be this big of an issue for a team that considers itself “elite”. The basics of the game are a struggle. At this point, they are bad until they prove otherwise.

The Lightning have a few days off. I’m sure we’ll get platitudes and bland sound bytes about practice. Come Friday we’ll see how true any of it is.

Eat at Arby’s.