The Bolts open the season Thursday at Amalie Arena when they host the Philadelphia Flyers at 7:30 p.m. The game will be televised locally on CSN Philadelphia.
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It had taken Yzerman 11 seasons to finally get there and the world was watching, yet Detroit was done in a flash.
Tampa Bay outshot the Flyers 5-3 during overtime, and 32-25 for the game. The Lightning certainly didn’t look good in the preseason (3-3-1), and if that lingers this month, it could force it to play catch up the rest of the way.
Laughton would spend the tail-end of the season in the AHL after a concussion seemingly derailed his flow and the Flyers brass thought it would be best to play more minutes in Lehigh Valley. “He pushed the envelope and made this team”. Can you play a zone-coverage similar to how you’d defend a 5-on-3? But lets be honest, there’s no reason that half the league’s goaltenders should be putting up stats that guys like Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy had to work a lot harder to attain.
The new seating area, now called the Loge Boxes, has already sold out to fans at $15,000 apiece.
The Lightning’s lackluster power play finally produced the game-tying goal in the second period.
Their reasoning: Young players such as Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn are going into fifth National Hockey League seasons, while Michael Raffl is establishing himself as a bona fide first-liner. R.J. Umberger made a nice move to find Scott Laughton, who left a little tip pass for Read, who beat Bishop through his 5-hole. We just need to hope it doesn’t have negative impacts like a few rule changes in the past created to improve the game. Last year, Philly notched 138 goals at 5-on-5 (25th in the NHL) and yielded 137 (9th in the NHL). More than anything else, the PK problems were what sank the Flyers’ fortunes, especially on the road.
Something that the Flyers horribly struggled with last season was secondary scoring.
“If you go 3-on-2, 2-on-1 or 2-on-0, like (Tampa Bay) did, if you don’t score and the other team gets the puck, you know there’s trouble right away”, right wing Jakub Voracek said. Wayne Simmonds also provides a consistent power punch on the second line.
“It was insane”, Flyers defenseman Mark Streit said. “Going home early, not making the playoffs, you sit on your couch and try not to watch the other teams play”.
I am hopeful that the large and substantial Lightning roster eases into a more physical style.
The expectation is that most teams will use two forwards and a defenseman, but that could change. With defensemen Jason Garrison and Braydon Coburn caught out of position, Palat did everything possible to slow the streaking Giroux.
The second period brought the scoring that the first had lacked.
There was more support in the defensive end.
Viktor Arvidsson scored the first goal of his National Hockey League career, and Seth Jones had two assists in the first period.
On the blueline, the gifted but somewhat injury-prone Hedman has sometimes dominated against the Flyers, especially in recent years. “I like the way our team played”. He also stoned Anton Stralman 26 seconds into overtime.
The Tampa blueline features a pair of longtime ex-Flyers in Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle. Neither team scored in the final 20 minutes, and they combined for only ten shots on goal.
The season opener, however, was a totally different story.
No team goes through a full season completely healthy. Johnson missed practice in Estero on Monday, but has since returned to fully participate.
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At the end, one question was posed: “What are we prepared to do to get back?” Philadelphia had two former Lightning players as scratches, C Vincent Lecavalier and D Radko Gudas, as well as C Sam Gagner….
