As I sit here on a rainy morning in St. Pete, the Bolts have fans scratching their heads again. Everybody got a nice break for the All-Star game, (even Kucherov, and he played) and came back rested and ready for the playoff run. Post-break the Bolts have taken six points out of their last six games including solid wins over the B’s in Boston and the Av’s at home. Then they followed those beauties up with an absolute humiliation at the hands of the Panthers. My thoughts-
The topic is so stale by now that I won’t waste much time on it. Yes, what Kuch did in the All-star game stickhandling competition was unprofessional. If I were him (instead of the decrepit D-leaguer that I am) I would have handled it the way I handle anything I go to because my wife asks me to. I act like I’m happy to be there. But Kucherov doesn’t operate the way I do. Or the way most of us do. His effort goes where he wants to spend it and the results are undeniable. And his All-Star efforts shouldn’t have any effect on Hart Trophy voters. On to things that matter.
The first game out of the break was at MSG against the Metro leading Rangers. New York is now 6-0 since the All-Star game, extending its lead over the surging Hurricanes and playing great hockey.
After a tightly played first, Jimmy Vesey gave the Rangers the lead with a backhander that found a hole over Vasilevskiy’s shoulder on the short side. I saw it as a great shot, but the broadcasters called Vasy out for trying to cheat over to play the pass. The Rangers got the game winner off a bang-bang play to Jonny Brodzinski with a couple of minutes left in the period. A Brandon Hagel goal got it close early in the third, but the Bolts didn’t really threaten, and Vesey got an empty netter for a 3-1 Rangers win.
The Big Cat was solid all night in holding New York to two goals, but the Rangers played a tight checking game, cutting off any stretch opportunities and blocking twenty-two shots. Despite only managing a single point, Kucherov was the best player on the ice all night.
Game two of the road-trip was at the Islanders. The ESPN team told me that new coach Patrick Wahhhh had the Islanders buying in to his ultra-competitive mentality, but despite having a solid record at home, the team is 5-8-4 in 2024 and dropped two immediately after the game with the Bolts, so this is not a strong squad.
Despite all that, it was all Islanders all night. Noah Dobson opened the scoring off a Tampa defensive turnover (Calvin DeHaan, who appears to have gone into the witness relocation program) with a wrister off Cernak’s skate. Kuch answered back with a slapshot for his sole point of the night before Matthew Barzal ripped a laser backhand short side to put the Isles up by two and Kyle Palmieri closed out the period putting away a nice feed from behind the net. First period chances were all Islanders as the lightning dragged themselves into the locker room down 3-1.
The second period didn’t go any better, with the Islanders putting up three more to the Bolts one as the night’s scoring came to an end. 6-2 Islanders.
After having watched the Bolts come into the All-Star break on an 8-1 heater, it was tough to watch this one. All that work, everything that was going so well, it all seemed to have slipped away over the break as Tampa looked like the lesser team against both of its New York opponents. But the following game looked on paper to be the easiest of the road trip.
Next stop Columbus. The Lightning built a workman-like 3-0 lead with Nick Paul putback off a Brandon Hagel rebound, followed by a Cirelli breakaway with a sweeeet finish and a Stamkos powerplay blast from his designated one-timer spot.
The Bolts were cruising with eight and a half minutes to play and a 3-0 lead before they decided to make me stress this one out to the finish. Mikey Eyssimont did some of his usual work and sent Ivan Provorov into orbit. The resulting wrestling match and powerplay resulted in a Boone Jenner goal. Four minutes later Jenner added a second and it was nail-biting time. The Jackets had a few goal mouth chances to tie the game, but Vasy barred the door before Hagel put it away with an empty netter for a 4-2 win.
At this point I posted to a Tampa Fans FaceBook group “That should have been easier”. While it felt innocuous enough to me, I learned something important over the next few hours. There are only two acceptable posts to a Tampa fan site. After a win you can say “Hooray! Go Bolts”. After a loss you must say “Darn it! We’ll get ‘em next time”. Anyone who posts anything else is a dangerously ill-informed low-IQ crybaby hockey moron, and an ungrateful low-life with a hateful heart. Social media is awesome.
Three games gone in the road trip and the 1-2 Bolts headed to Boston Garden on the night of a forecast Blizzard that never happened. Boston was coming off a 3-0 loss to the Caps and Jim Montgomery had been publicly threatening “changes”, so the Bolts expected to see a fired-up Boston team.
While the B’s held an edge all night, the Bolts had just enough to take home the W. Erik Cernak started the scoring, trailing Hagel and Cirelli into the B’s zone and ripping a wrister that broke through Linus Ullmark and squeaked across the line for a 1-0 lead. Kucherov made it 2-0 on the power play on a quick catch and release from the goal line on the right before Charlie McAvoy and James Van Riemsdyk scored to even it up.
While both teams had some solid chances, the Bruins carried the territorial edge for most of the night, ending the game with a 35-28 shot advantage and carrying the third with a 26-12 advantage in shot attempts. But Tampa came up big when it had to, including going 5-0 on the penalty kill. Both goalies took what was thrown at them including a Kucherov breakaway for Ullmark. Ultimately it came to a shootout where Vasy stopped DeBrusk, Coyle and Pasta while Brayden Point scored on a solid wrister that broke in off Ullmark’s stick as he sprawled to stay in front of a quick shift-and-hold move to shooter’s right. This was Vasilevskiy’s night, and it gave the Bolt’s four points on a tough road swing and a quality win to close out the trip.
Finally, the Bolts returned to Amelie for a game with a lot of great things going on. Kucherov’s competition for the scoring title, Nate Dogg McKinnon, was in town with the Avalanche. The Bolts unveiled their Black third jerseys and they were awesome. And most importantly my brother-in-law and I were in the building sitting in seats about a dozen rows back at center ice on the player benches side. It was an a great night and the Bolts delivered in spades.
The Lightning were the stronger team all night. After holding the edge in scoring chances early the Bolts fell behind 1-0 on a Bo Byram redirect off a feed from Mikko Rantanen. But the Lightning came right back to score on a clearing attempt that deflected off Point and then took the lead on a Kucherov goal from that area on the red line off to the right that he loves so much.
Byram had another in the second and Arturri Lehkonnen put the Avalanche up 3-2 with a goal mouth tip early in the third. But the Bolts would answer yet again. Stamkos got open 20 feet behind the defense and Kuch found him for a beautiful breakaway with an awesome finishing tuck around Colorado backup Justus Annunen to tie it at 3-3. Another mind-bending give-and-go kick to the stick roofer by Kucherov and the Bolts had a lead they would not give up. Cirelli and Emile Lilleberg closed out the scoring with empty netters for a convincing 6-3 win.
It felt so good with consecutive wins over the B’s and Avs and (now in first place) Florida coming to town. And then…disaster struck. No details needed. This was a 9-2 home ice shellacking. You’re going to be seeing this guy in your nightmares.
So where are we this morning? The Bolts will shake off the Panthers game. The schedule gets easier for a while and points will pile up as the Bolts carry on to an eventual wild card. But it’ll never be easy and there will always be reasons for doubt to creep in. And Bolts nation can circle March 16th against the Panthers on the road.
The Morning Skate 