Well, that was a rough one. The Lightning’s offense sputtered a bit in the wake of Philadelphia’s swarming coverage in the offensive zone. Benoit Pouliot scored the only goal for the Lightning and Andres Lindback made 22 saves.

What seemed to make the most news were two fights that took place. First B.J. Crombeen and Zach Rinaldo dropped the gloves at 6:19 in the first.

After Crombeen made his way to the bench unsteadily, Marty St. Louis and Danny Briere had words near the Lightning bench. The Bolts took exception to Rinaldo continuing to throw punches after Crombeen was already down. The NBC announcers began to wonder if hockey’s fighting “code” was violated by the continued blows. Crombeen returned in the second period, but was held out later due to precautionary measures.

We’re all biased so it’s easy to say Rinaldo went too far. Except pretty much everyone except Mike Milbury and Keith Jones think he did as well. Hopefully B.J. is ok, but we’ll most likely know more in the morning.

In the third period, more fisticuffs ensued. It had been almost 4 years since Vinny Lecavalier’s last fight until he dropped them against Luke Schenn on January 27th, and now he’s had two in a season. This time with Max Talbot.

The guy plays 1000 games and he’s lost his damn mind. As exciting as it is to see the captain asserting himself physically, it took one of the Lightning’s best offensive players off the ice late in the game when they trailed on the scoreboard. Vinny’s also had surgically repaired wrists and probably shouldn’t mess with that stuff.

The Bolts are headed off to New Jersey tonight to prepare for Thursday’s game against the Devils.