Photo by Alexis Boucher

It’s difficult to know where to even begin with tonight’s game. There was a whole lot of bad from start to finish. Whether it was allowing 41 shots, giving Evgeni Malkin space to work his magic, and missing good offensive opportunities. If it sounds like a broken record, that’s because a lot of these issues have plagued the Bolts all season. Pittsburgh came away with two points in an absolute beat down.

Guy Boucher may be gone, but Jon Cooper is dealing with an offense that continues to try to be too fancy. Instead of putting the puck on net, they’re dipsy doodling around with passes. Getting too complicated leads to turn overs and a lot of scoring changes for the opposition. It also means the Lightning lose quality chances to score their own goals. This has to be addressed.

As for the Lightning’s goals, all three came with the man advantage. Teddy Purcell scored twice and Brett Connolly scored his first of the year. The success on the power play is pretty much the only good thing that happened tonight.

This is a lesson to us all. The Lightning have a long way to go to be able to stand with the elite teams in the league. There’s a lot of work ahead of them this summer, that’s for sure.

Photo by Linda Hamilton

Tampa Bay Lightning fans have been buzzing since the news of Guy Boucher’s dismissal broke yesterday. Who is the guy who will take his spot behind the bench? A veteran like Lindy Ruff or the wildly successful AHL coach already in the organization? Per Darren Dreger of TSN, Steve Yzerman’s man is Syracuse Crunch head coach Jon Cooper. Damian Cristodero of the Tampa Bay Times stated that no contract has been signed, so nothing is official as of yet.

Sports radio is already buzzing about the prospect. Is this the right move for the struggling Lightning? Should they have taken on a more experienced coach like Lindy Ruff? The point is a bit moot at this point. Cooper’s success with the Admirals and now the Crunch put him on the radar of a lot of teams. If he didn’t become a head coach at the NHL level, there was a very real possibility he would have done so somewhere else.

The shortened season will hopefully give him time to acclimatize to the NHL and the locker room dynamics here. A number of his guys are already up with the Bolts. Ideally the veterans will buy in based on their success.

Update: And it’s official. Jon Cooper becomes the eighth head coach in Lightning history. Cooper should have his first game with the Bolts at Friday’s home game against the Devils.

Photo by Linda Hamilton

It seems as though it’s been predicted all season long, but it’s finally happened. The Lightning have fired Guy Boucher as their head coach this morning. Assistant coaches Dan LaCroix and Martin Raymond will handle coaching duties behind the bench in tonight’s game at Winnipeg.

Boucher leaves the Lightning with a record of 84-62-16. After experiencing wild success in his first season as head coach, the Lightning never seemed to live up to the promise of the 2011 playoffs. As of today, the Bolts are 13-17-1 and sit in 14th place in the Eastern Conference.

GM Steven Yzerman issued the following statement when announcing the news:

Via the Official Lightning Website:

“Guy has poured his heart and soul into the Lightning organization for these past three years and we appreciate all the work he has done. But ultimately I am not satisfied with the direction we are heading and I believe making a change today is in the best interest of our franchise.”

» Continue reading “Lightning Release Guy Boucher As Head Coach”

Me too, Guy. Me too.

I felt compelled to write this article because there seems to be a lot of division among Tampa Bay Lightning fans.  On one hand, you have people vehemently supporting Boucher and, quite frankly, getting testy with those who suggest his job status is in jeopardy.  The other half, from what I’ve seen, isn’t necessarily calling for Boucher’s head, but rather is floating the possibility of him being fired and getting shouted down by those who support him. I’m sure there are people out there saying “FIRE HIM NOW,” but I haven’t seen it personally.

Though I’m writing this article with as little of my opinion infused as I can, I will state that I am one of those floating the possibility.  With the next two paragraphs I will state the information that is out there for both arguments and hopefully you, the reader, can see both sides of the coin. » Continue reading “Guy Boucher Is On The Hot Seat Whether You Like It Or Not”

Following last night’s dismal showing against the New York Rangers, the media headed into the locker room to get the Lightning’s thoughts on the game. Pretty standard, really. What was out of character was that some of the team’s top players showed us what happens when people start getting real. Sun Sports showed interviews with both Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman. Their words were a far cry from the programmed and sometimes cliche answers we’ve heard through the first 20 games of the season. Instead of canned responses, we got men who are clearly struggling to find an answer.

Allow head coach Guy Boucher to set the stage with his post game comments.

» Continue reading “Mad As Hell: Getting Angry May Be Just What The Lightning Need”

Bringing Lindy Back Photo by Alexis Boucher

When teams are struggling to find consistency, it’s easy for fans and pundits to start pointing fingers at perceived scapegoats. In baseball the blame is often assigned to the pitchers, in football it’s the quarterback. In hockey a lot of the woes are placed on the heavily padded shoulders of the goaltender. It makes sense. They are the one man standing in the way of  the opposition getting a tally on the scoreboard. Even if a lot of different factors can contribute to the opposition scoring, the lion’s share of the blame is placed with the masked man between the pipes.

We’ve seen quite a lot of this in Tampa’s shortened season in regards to Anders Lindback. Making the young netminder the scapegoat is extremely short sighted.  A lot of people need to take a chill pill.  Tampa has had goaltending issues for quite some time, but there’s no reason to write Lindback off as a failure 18 games into the season.

» Continue reading “Shut Your Yap: Lay Off Lindback Edition”

Guy Boucher Photo by Linda Hamilton

Following the Lightning’s loss in New Jersey last night, there were a lot of things that  could have made headlines. Anders Lindback. The questionable calls by the officials. Steven Stamkos’ birthday. Those all became mere footnotes in light of head coach Guy Boucher’s reaction to several penalties in the third period.

It started when Marty St. Louis was called for hooking. Less than a minute later, the officials miss a Devils’s icing call and when Adam Hall tried to clear the puck, he was called for high sticking after catching Travis Zajac on his follow through.  The whole thing can be seen here:

» Continue reading “Guy Boucher’s Derp Face Captivates The World”

Pretty much, Guy.

So. Yeah. Things started off well enough in Newark this evening. The Lightning got off to a stronger start, looked a lot less sluggish, and were putting pucks on net. Unfortunately,  a number of the same issues that have reared their heads over the last few games came with them too. Unable to sustain pressure in the offensive zone and turnovers played a big part on the 4-2 loss to the New Jersey.

Oh and those funny penalty calls in the third period, but we’ll get there soon enough.

» Continue reading “Devil In The Details: Lightning Fall In New Jersey 4-2″

A scary moment from the Lightning’s practice at the Tampa Bay Times on Thursday. Defenseman Brendan Mikkelson smashed into the end boards during a drill. The back of his head and neck rammed against the boards and Mikkelson lost consciousness for a few seconds. The medical team was quick to respond. After several minutes on the ice, he was able to move his arms & legs before being helped up. He skated off the ice under his own power, but was sent to Tampa General Hospital for testing.

“He was lucid. He was talking,” Head coach Guy Boucher said. “There was no hit or anything. Maybe he hit a crack in the ice. He went plunging. Not a good sight.” (Quote Source: Tampa Bay Times)

Mikkelson was released from the hospital folowing the tests. He has been listed as day to day with an unspecified upper body injury. He was in the locker room for today’s morning skate. The only lingering symptoms seem to be soreness and stiffness in his shoulder.

Whew. That’s very good news.

Steve Yzerman & Vinny Lecavalier Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay Lightning Facebook Page

This evening’s game at the Tampa Bay Times Forum began with a great celebration of Vinny Lecavalier’s first 1,000 games in the NHL. Once the team gets some of the videos up, we’ll go into that in more detail. The action on the ice was pretty remarkable as well. After a sloppy second period, the Lightning regrouped and defeated the Ottawa Senators 6-4.  In doing so they handed the Sens their first loss of the season.

Matt Carle opened the scoring on a power play  just 1:09 into the first period, but it didn’t take long for Erik Condra to tie it up. Ottawa pulled away in the second on goals from Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson. Steven Stamkos did what he does best to pull the Bolts within one, only to see Kyle Turris widen the gap yet again. Victor Hedman brought an action packed second period to a close with a goal of his own.

» Continue reading “Spoiler Alert: Bolts End Senators Undefeated Streak”