Defensive Holes Greet Flyers, Santa
December 24th, 2009
Amanda Harris
By AMANDA HARRIS
JoeBoltsFan.com analyst
No Christmas miracles. No season-high three-game win streak. No holiday bonus prior to St. Nick’s impending arrival.
Rather, an epic collapse in the third period and another duo bitten by the injury bug (Todd Fedoruk and Jeff Halpern, both with lower body ailments) served to characterize the Lightning’s 5-2 loss to Philadelphia on the eve of Christmas Eve.
They say ‘tis better to give than to receive, and rather than hording a pair of points and making their two-day break all the merrier, the Bolts let the Grinch Flyers steal this one right out from under them after mounting quite the comeback in minutes 21-40.
In the hole from the get go, Tampa Bay ceded two early goals (actually one, plus Andrej Meszaros’ own goal) no thanks to some seriously shoddy passing and loads of standing around and watching. Resembling the Caltrans crew I passed on the way home today, each five-man unit had one guy working while the rest “supervised.” Not the best strategy for winning, especially when you’re being outshot nearly 2-1.
Hitting the ice in the middle frame, the Lightning looked to be a team reformed with better puck movement and guys gapping-up to really stick it to the Flyers. Though down to just 10 forwards, the Bolts managed to tie things up tidily on tallies from Zenon Konopka (his first since December 14, 2005 which was, ironically, scored against Tampa Bay) and Victor Hedman.
With Konopka’s crease-crashing goal coming off a Steve Downie rebound (via a puck Downie stole clean away) and Hedman’s shot the result of Kurtis Foster protecting the blueline to keep the saucer in play, it’s no wonder Philadelphia opted to take its time out in the second in an attempt to regroup and reestablish a presence in the game.
And though they didn’t assert themselves until the midpoint of the third stanza, the Flyers most certainly found their footing — and all of the holes in Tampa Bay’s last lines of defense. Roaring back to score three, including a gutting empty-netter, Philly waltzed right through the neutral zone to reclaim the lead and break its four-game winless streak.
Leave it to the Bolts to go from doing all of the little difference-making things right to committing inexcusable hockey fouls in a span of mere minutes. Hopefully, Rick Tocchet will have some answers for all of us this time around.
Aside from Marty St. Louis extending his point streak to three games and Vinny Lecavalier finally bringing the quiver, registering seven attempts (nearly all of them rockets) and four minutes in the box despite his minus-3 rating on the night, the highlight of my evening was learning more about Knopper’s Polish Christmas traditions.
Staring at the mountain of presents I have yet to wrap, knowing we missed out on a couple of “cake” points at home, I’m thinking it’s time to do as the Konopka’s do and educate ourselves on the virtues of a fine Scotch.
Either that or I’m heading over to Bugsy’s house tomorrow night. Word is he leaves a cold one out for Santa. …
