The Lightning's forecheck officially belongs on a milk carton.
TB-1
BOS-3
Mike McKenna [11] allowed 3 goals on 39 shots in the loss. He rebounded from a couple of puck handling errors and was otherwise very solid. The Lightning have a tough decision to make with McKenna. Ordinarily, you would want a veteran #3 goaltender like McKenna in your organization. But, it will be very tough for the Lightning to send Riku Helenius [12] or Dustin Tokarski [13] down to the Coast if they do re-sign McKenna.
First Period
14:03 BOS Wheeler (20), (Savard)
Second Period
06:56 BOS Chara (17), (Bergeron, Krejci)(PP)
13:35 BOS Kobasew (20), (Chara, Krejci)(PP)
Third Period
12:07 TB Stamkos (20), (Malone, Lashoff)
Other than Stammer's 20th of the season tonight, there's not a whole lot to be excited about from the past couple of games.
Noah Welch [14] had 2 penalty minutes and 1 blocked shot in 11:34.
Matt Smaby [15] was -1 with 2 hits in 20:30. Good to have the big guy back. I thought he moved pretty well tonight after sitting out the game against Ottawa.
Martins Karsums [16] was -1 with 1 shot and 2 hits in 10:55.
Richard Petiot [17] was +1 with 7 penalty minutes, 1 shot, and 5 hits in 19:42.
Matt Lashoff [18] had 1 assist and was +1 with 3 shots and 2 hits in 21:41. There were one or two plays tonight where Lashoff made plays that are hopefully indicative of the way his game is going to evolve next season: playing the proper angle defensively and then cancelling out the opposing forward physically. I'm just guessing he had a little extra juice playing against his old organization, but if he can do that consistently, he's going to be a stud defenseman in this league. The offense is there (6 assists in 8 games so far with the Lightning). If his defensive game rounds out, he's going to be every bit as good as Paul Ranger [19] and Andrej Meszaros [20].
Box score [21] and extended statistics [22] from NHL.com.