Tampa BAE Lightning Post Mortem: Vasy was right
Things Are Bad
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAnother bad loss
Unacceptable results
Ten goals in two games
The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to disappoint as they fall to the New Jersey Devils 5-3 at home in Game 2. During his preseason media availability, Vasy made a comment on how it was not good for the fans to see their team get “shit kicked” in the playoffs at home.
He’s right. It’s bad. And what’s worse, it’s only Game 2.
Almost nothing went right for the Bolts during the 1st period. The first two goals were scored against the same defensive pair of Raddysh - Lilleberg. The Bolts third pair is a major issue right now. Thankfully, JJ Moser is coming back into the fold after serving a two game suspension, but the Lightning need to address this pairing and quickly. On both goals, Lilleberg looked well out of position. He needs to be sent down. His play brought down Perbix last year and I’m convinced it’s happening again with Raddysh. I think Moser will be a help, but I don’t think Lilleberg should see NHL ice for the forseeable future.
The Lightning woke up in the 2nd period and scored the only two goals of the period to bring the game to 3-2. That’s a great place to be going into the 3rd. Then the Lightning got a power play and you could feel the fans thinking “This is how we get back in.” And Kucherov would be a part of it, but he would be the wrong part of it.
He floated a lazy back handed pass to Raddysh at the point, Jesper Bratt was able to pick it off no problem, zoom in unaccompanied on Vasy, and boom. 4-2 on a short-handed goal. Absolute back breaker.
The Devils get one more and the Bolts get a garbage time goal to make it 5-3. The Lightning are 0-2 and it’s against teams that they could likely face in the playoffs. This is really not good. Something has got to give 0-2 is bad. 0-3 might get someone traded/sent to the AHL.
We’ll see how quickly the Lightning are able to turn it around, but right now I don’t see a whole lot that tells me they will.
In my opinion, fading the Lightning would make someone a nice little pocket. At least for the time being.
Have a great day, everyone. Go Bucs.