It's Swedish Night! Featuring: Swedish meatballs! and chips, and hot dogs and Pepsi?!? The last 3 are definitely not Swedish... Where is the pickled herring? the vörtlimpa (Christmas rye bread)? the gravad lax (lox)? or my favorite: the Glögg? That last one not only sounds cool, it's the nordic term for mulled wine and I would recommend it as your beverage of choice while you watch tonights game.
Enemy blog: Check out Jibblescribbits whose mother considers him as "handsome" or Anyone but Detroitwhose mother may or may not consider him as "handsome".
The Avalanche were awesome coming out of the gate surprising everyone, largely due to Craig Anderson's oustanding play. They have since slowed down a little, but are still in 4th place in the West, only 2 points back from the NW division leader. In the beginning of the season, Matt Duchene's name was being thrown around a lot for a possible rookie of the year...yeah, now, not so much but he does show flashes of great skill, but how about that Ryan O'Reilly kid?
Craig Anderson has been 3-6-3 in his last 12 starts. Like the Lightning's loss to Dallas, the Avalanche lost on Saturday in a shootout to Minnesota. What hurts more for them is that also lost David Jones for the season with a torn ACL. Milan Hejduk and TJ Galiardi did not play due to injury. Line-up Notes:
Our big Swede, Mattias Ohlund is still out
Game time: 7:30pm ET on SUN.
Note: I am a bit of a foodie, and have a thing for local European foods...so I am a little dismayed that Swedish night only has Swedish meatballs.
So the NHL Arena is running a blog-off contest for all the NHL Teams. Yours truly has been nominated as one of the Tampa Bay Lightning bloggers. It says you have to pick your favorite 4, but really you can just pick 1 and hit submit...
but I think Rawcharge are cool people too, so feel free to give them some love too.
It takes about 5 minutes to register for an account, but maybe you'll be rewarded with good karma or something for voting for me. I don't really know what the purpose of this blog-off is, maybe just being voted best blog? Who knows.
So here is the direct link to click if you'd like to show me some love. If you don't, well thats ok too, since it doesn't affect me how I do on a discussion board contest, since well I rarely visit discussion boards...
Both teams were in action last night, the Lightning won 5-1 over the Rangers, and the Stars lost 5-2 to the Coyotes. Both teams travelled to Dallas for tonights game. Both of our records are pretty close in number, the Lightning at 10-6-7 and the Starts at 11-7-7. There was a lot of 'both teams' in that paragraph, but what I'm trying to get at is that the teams are well matched up, and are in the same position in tiredness. Dallas has the edge with it being a home crowd, though fan turnout for Dallas has been pretty suspect lately.
The Lighting will not make any line-up changes to tonight, which means that Mike Smith will start in goal. Smith and Halpern return to Dallas to face their old team, from which they got traded from for Brad Richards.
The Lightning have had help in scoring from their D men during the last couple of games which is great to see. Stamkos clearly is continuing his campaign to crack the Team Canada roster. Players to watch from Dallas beside Brad Richards is James Neal, Louie Eriksson and their rookie, who is a former Kelowna Rocket, Jamie Benn.
If you can get the FS Southwest feed instead, I would highly recommend watching that one instead of the SUN one. By far, the Dallas guys are the most hilarious announcers in the NHL. Line-up Notes:
Mattias Ohlund is still out with a lower body injury (day to day)
Mike Smith is in goal
Game time: 8:30pm ET on SUN.
No recap of the game tonight, because I will be out hitting the town tonight for some celebrations...so instead to make up for it, please enjoy the Lecavalier and Richards NHL promo video
When we were up 4-0 going into the 3rd, and I started to get nervous. You'd think being up 4-0 you wouldn't be nervous, but I was. It comes from the repeated times that the Lightning can have a lead, then somehow lose all composure, blow the lead, and end up losing in overtime.
But we didn't.
And Lundqvist got pulled. He gave up 4 goals on 22 shots.
Things just kinda went our way in this game. Great team effort.
St. Louis had 3 assists
Stamkos got another goal (#16)
Kurtis Foster went from no goals up until a week ago, to 3 goals, this may not seam like a lot, but that the same amount that he got for the Wild during the whole 06/07 season
Black Friday. I don't really understand all the hoopla about Black Friday....though I'm the type of person that will buy shoes at the beginning of the season because I don't like to deal with being told they don't have my size during a sale. I don't do large crowds at sales, I don't do boxing day sales, so I don't think I would do Black Friday well. I do like the concept of getting another day off, even if it is without pay.
Enemy blog: I don't respect many Ranger fans, except Scotty Hockey
So for Black Friday, the Lightning will have an open skate for fans from 6-8:45am (who is up at that ungodly hour on a day off, I don't know) which if you are reading this, you have already missed. Followed by an open Lightning morning skate from 10am-1pm and a discounted equipment sale. Terrace level tickets are on sale for $10. Seriously. Click here for all the Black Friday details.
There is also some discount on tickets for a "Lingerie Football League". I'm afraid to type that into the google machine and see what pops up.
On the hockey front, the Ranjuhs are 13-10-1 and have won the last two in a row. The Lightning on the other hand, well defence at least look like they've lost all sense of direction since Ohlund has been out with injury.
Tonight is the return of John Tortorella for the first time back to face the Lightning as a coach for the Rangers, and really it's not a big deal. He still lives in the Tampa Bay area (at least he did last year when he was an analyst on TSN) and is part of the community. Yes he did have a bit of a feud with Vinny when he coached the team, but Vinny is a big boy and will get overthe drama.
What is a big deal is that Marian Gaborik is still healthy. And Wade Redden is injured.
Line-up Notes:
Mattias Ohlund is still out with a lower body injury (day to day)
This game was a bit of a first for the Lightning, it showed a back and forth play between the two teams. Even though we lost, and ended the home streak, from what I watched, I enjoyed the game for the entertainment factor.
The Leafs came out early and scored two goals from Kulemin and Hagman early in the game. The Lightning answered back with a PPG from Meszaros and a even strength goal from Lecavalier in the 1st. Hagman started off the 2nd period with a goal for the Leafs, before Malone evened it up at 7:52 in the 2nd. It wasn't until the end of the 2nd that Stajan got the game winner of the night for the Leafs.
Thoughts on the game:
Stamkos had two assists
Toronto's Hagman had a fantastic game
Malone had a great chance to get a goal in the end, but he was clearly out of gas, and a neat diving poke check from Beauchemin killed the attempt
I didn't like Lundin's game, was terrible from what I saw in the 3rd
The Lightning lost for the first time in regulation at home this year
Next game for the Lightning is on Friday against the Rangers. Enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone (well Americans at least). Gobble Gobble.
I'm a Tampa Bay Lightning fan. When not working, I spend much of my free time watching, reading, listening or attending hockey games. If there is no Lightning game, I can be found most nights at the rink with my other love, the Canucks.
Send me an e-mail or if you want to do a link exchange, contact me at thehockeybay AT gmail DOT com
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