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”

Photo by Alexis Boucher

There’s the families we’re born into and the ones we make along the way. We have quite a few members of our extended family that have come into our lives because of hockey. The NHL may be on hiatus for the foreseeable future, but we have each other and the bonds we’ve made.

Oh, and videos from years past of Lightning players making fools of themselves.

Wishing you and yours joy, peace, and a very Merry Christmas.

» Continue reading “Happy Holidays, Bolts Nation”

Do or do not. There is no try.

A long time ago in an arena by the bay… two hockey bloggers found themselves sitting at home on a Friday night. Dinner had been consumed, pajamas were on,  and the only thing left to do was to find a movie on television. Enter “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back”.

As the movies progressed, Jason Haas and I did the only thing we could to make the evening complete. We cast Lightning players past and present in George Lucas’ space epic.  The original trilogy only, of course. We’re not complete heathens.

Who’s who in our Lightning/Star Wars crossover? Read on…

» Continue reading “Bolt Wars: Who’s Scruffy-Looking?”

With the Lightning’s signing of  free agent defenseman Matt Carle, the blue line crew was bolstered in a pretty big way.  The addition may have far reaching impact in another way. As we’ve documented in the past, Nate Thompson and Teddy Purcell assumed the Bolts’ bromance crown after Mike Smith and Ryan Malone were parted. Last year was a bit rocky for Neddy, but will Carle be the one to finally tear it asunder?

The odds aren’t exactly in Teddy’s favor. Nate and Matt Carle have the whole Alaskan connection coupled with the fact that they have been teammates every year since they were 6 years old on a traveling youth team back home.

“I’m glad he chose to sign with us. It was a good feeling when I found out he was coming to Tampa, and I really couldn’t be more excited,” Thompson said. (Quote Source: Official Lightning Site)

Neddy appeared to be in jeopardy last season after the arrival of Nate’s old teammate Bruno Gervais. Teddy and Matt Gilroy got pretty chummy until Gilly was traded to the Ottawa Senators. Teddy and Nate were reunited, but now they appear to be facing an even bigger obstacle to their friendship.

To complicate matters, Teddy appears to be spending his summer with questionable characters like Paul Bissonnette while Nate was back home on a fishing trip with his fellow Alaskans.

It may be too early to worry, but Teddy himself mentioned a Nate/Matt bromance on Twitter. It’s a long off season, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Like sands through the hour glass, these are the days of our Lightning.