6
0
Grumpy Lightning pummel the remains of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
PIT-1
TB-6
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed one goal on 15 shots for the victory. I blame the lost shutout on Brian Engblom who didn’t mention the s-word directly, but used a euphemism for it on the broadcast in the Third Period. Former defenseman. C’mon man.
First Period
12:13 TB Cirelli (25), (Paul, McDonagh)
13:30 TB McDonagh (3), (Kucherov, Cernak)
15:12 TB Cirelli (26), (Hagel, Moser)
16:00 TB Point (35), (Guentzel, Kucherov)
Second Period
15:31 TB Kucherov (31), (Raddysh, Bjorkstrand)(PP)
19:19 TB Hagel (33), (Perbix, Lilleberg)
Third Period
14:15 PIT Rust (26), (Grzelcyk, Crosby)
Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, Ryan McDonagh.
I’m not used to seeing NHL teams fold their tents at the first sign of adversity much less seeing a franchise like the Pittsburgh Penguins do what they did in this game. That was embarrassing. Good on the Lightning for running a less talented team out of the building, but man Pittsburgh should be ashamed that they showed themselves to be devoid of pride in how they reacted. That was awful. Folks who were upset that Julien BriseBois chose not to go the rout of turning the Lightning into the hockey equivalent of a library/catalogue band, pay heed to tonight’s game. That’s what a library/catalogue band looks like at the end of the road. Maybe it’s better to try to continue to try to make new music after all.
Toronto killed Philly so at night’s end the Lightning find themselves two back of Sunrise and the Leafs with all three teams having 11 games left to play and all three are knotted at 35 regulation wins if it goes to the tiebreakers. Wish the Lightning were just slightly better than ambivalent on the road, this wouldn’t be a close division race at all.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
