Tampa Bay Lightning

ESPN is reporting C Nick Tarnasky and RW Darren Reid have been recalled from Springfield of the AHL. Tarnasky scored a hat trick last night including the overtime game winning goal against Bridgeport while Reid has been one of Springfield's best players over the past month.

In the last game there were 0 minutes of good effort. Tonight there were about 41. Lets try to make it 60 next time out.

MTL-6
TB-2

John Grahame, who was a trainwreck, allowed 6 goals on 22 shots. Combine bad goaltending with some sloppy turnovers, and you get killed 6-2 by a lesser team.

Post mortem from NHL.com.

The Lightning's game readiness still hasn't gotten back from Torino. Hopefully it will by Saturday.

FLA-8
TB-2

Ryan Craig scored his 10th of the season on the power play, the game's lone silver lining.

Post mortem by NHL.com.

Gold
Fredrik Modin

Silver
Fredrik Norrena

Bronze
Pavel Kubina
Vaclav Prospal

I'm extremely happy for Fredrik Modin. He's been one of the classiest players in the Lightning's history since joining the team 6-7 years ago. Now he's won a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal in the span of about a year and a half. I can think of few players who deserve it more.

Back to work Tuesday.

You know, I find it pretty funny "mainstream" media outlets like Hockey's Future and THN can find it fit to ridicule the Tampa Bay Lightning's prospect base, put us dead last in their organizational ranking and keep our players out of their top-50 prospects without even so much as an honorable mention and yet when the puck is dropped and the real games are played the Lightning have three of the better rookies in the league this season. TSN released their top-40 rankings for rookie forwards today and Ryan Craig (#23) and Evgeny Artyukhin (#25) both made the grade. Here's a fun exercise: count the number of well hyped 1st round draft picks lunch pail 8th rounder Ryan Craig has outplayed so far this year. I count nine between the rest of the top-40 and the honorable mentions TSN lists, and I'm sure a certain very biased online editor at Hockey's Future must be thoroughly embarassed by the immortal Jim Slater being bested by two prospects from the Lightning's allegedly bare cupboard. Earlier TSN had released their list of the top-20 rookie defensemen prospects and 6th round pick Paul Ranger checked in at #15. What!? No Braydon Coburn!?!?!

To the critics of this organization:

Would you prefer yours grilled or baked?