NHL Game Night: 3-31-12 Jets at Lightning

[BP Staff]

Impressive debuts and #91 with a hammer.

WPG-2
TB-3 (OT)

Sebastien Caron made his first start in a Lightning jersey and was excellent stopping 26 of 28 for the victory. Let him play out the season and earn himself an NHL contract somewhere for next season, I say.

First Period
TB Malone (19), (unassisted), 15:37

Second Period
WPG Miettinen (5), (Kane, Stuart), 6:20
WPG Wellwood (18), (Byfuglien, Stapleton), 9:28

Third Period
TB Malone (20), (Purcell, Hedman)(PP), 7:25

Overtime
TB Stamkos (56), (Lee), 0:45

Ryan Malone and Steven Stamkos were the game's first and third stars. Congratulations to Ryan Malone, who raced from 15 to 20 goals in the hockey equivalent of a blink of an eye this week. It'd be fun to see what Malone could do if he could stay healthy for an entire season. Stamkos, for his part, sets a new NHL record with 5 overtime game winning goals in a season, as he continues his push to get to 60 goals. Pretty cool.

What I really enjoyed about this game was the way the young players received opportunities and showed something. Brent Connolly looked good, Victor Hedman kept up his points streak his on and got in a little scrap, and I'll write about J.T. Brown in a bit. Even Keith Aulie had a pretty positive game, in my mind, and it seemed like Brendan Mikkelson got to play a ton, too. You're seeing a lot of good young pieces playing well in both Tampa Bay and in Norfolk, and you've got the best young player in the game in Steven Stamkos. Mix in another lottery pick, and this season's going to seem like a minor pothole in the grand scheme of things. My only regret is that, in beating Winnipeg, the team may have lost an opportunity to get into the top 5-6 picks of this draft. Some scouting organizations judge this a 5 player draft, as far as impact players go. I judge it a 5+1 or 2, right now, especially given the situation with Sarnia's Alex Galchenyuk losing so much time to injury this year, a la Connolly in his draft year. And I still want that little, mean-spirited Dan Boyle clone from Red Deer. The Lightning would be picking 9th now, pending the outcome of the lottery drawing, based on my quick look at the standings. Maybe they can get the ping pong balls to bounce their way and still move up 4 spots into the top-5.

Aulie had 1 shot and 3 hits in 13:37. He was good tonight. I know, I was surprised, too. He was physical. He had some interesting little offensive zone forays. He wasn't a pylon. That was more like it. And, you can now tell your children where you were when Keith Aulie finally broke the 13 minute barrier in a game that wasn't completely out of hand.

J.T. Wyman had 4 penalty minutes and 1 shot in 7:26. Old J.T. overshadowed by new J.T.

J.T. Brown had 2 shots in 13:33 in his NHL debut. Color me impressed. He's a very, very good skater and he showed some decent early chemistry with both Vincent Lecavalier and Brent Connolly, and those are two players that aren't the easiest to read off of because they're both creative stickhandlers. Looked pretty responsible defensively in terms of his positioning, too. You can tell he was well coached at Minnesota-Duluth. I don't know if he can be as physically active at 170 pounds in the NHL as he was in college, but I'm looking forward to him getting on the Steven Stamkos training regime this offseason and seeing him add that element into his game next year, because his college film will remind you of Jeremy Roenick, at times. That was a quality signing.

Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.



http://www.boltprospects.com/content...jets-lightning

[timothy]

The thing about Aulie's physical play tonight was that he was stepping up and taking care of a lot of it in the neutral zone. Not giving the puck carrier a free pass into the zone. There was one time he pasted Kane into the glass at the half boards. His best game to date IMO.

Impressive debut by JT2

[pete]

Exactly. Much like Smaby, hustle and aggression is the only thing that compensates for slow feet.

[ChaseSpace]

The young ones did look great tonight. Will Brown be able to play in Norfolk's playoff push or no since he's not on their clear day roster?

Also, who dafuq is "Brent Connolly"?

[pete]

It's the version of #14 that plays well.

[Donnie D]

The one part of #14's game that hasn't changed is that it seems that every time the other team has one of those extra long periods in our zone, Connolly is out there. Don't know if it is the lack of strength, the awareness, but that is the area where he needs to improve and why I think he spends next year in Norfolk ---- or wherever we have our farm team next year.

Regarding your coment on using Caron the rest of the way - I think you have to give Roli the final game at home given what he did for the team last year - and hope he doesn't play so bad that he has to get pulled. He was the main improvement last year that got this team within a goal of the finals. This should be his final professional game in front of a home crowd and I think he merits the opportunity for the fans to thank him for last year and a long career. And the game really means nothing anyway.

If you want to play Caron the 3 away games - fine. But this one has to be Roli's game.