Tampa Bay has the lead. That’s the good news. But if you are watching this game, you can’t feel real good about how the period transpired. The Lightning goal was a good play by Ryan Malone, who dug the puck off the wall and fed Vinny Lecavalier. But Zdeno Chara misread things and Lecavalier took advantage and blew right by the big Slovak defenseman before feeing Marty St. Louis, who has an open net to shot at as Tim Thomas committed himself to Lecavalier.

The Lightning had a power play right after that and it looked pretty good, there was some good puck movement and Andrej Meszaros showcased the good, hard shot he has from the point getting some pucks through through screens, but there was no goal to help build the lead. And judging from the looks of things so far, they are going to need a few insurance goals because the Bruins have had the better chances - by far.

On Tampa Bay’s second power play, they couldn’t even get the puck in the zone. The first unit tried, the second unit tried and both failed miserably. So for the final shift of the power play, Rick Tocchet threw out the kid line with Paul Szczechura, Radek Smolenak and Steve Downie and wouldn’t you know, they retrieve the puck in the zone and get a shot off before the man advantage expired.

Mike Smith’s glove hand has been sharp and quick thus far, and he’s been good. He looks a little reckless handling the puck at times, perhaps more than he has at any other time this season.

By the way, the Bruins have instituted the Jacques Lemaire model of play, which is a staple of Boston coach Claude Julien, and that is a trap. A big-time trap. While most teams have been pressuring the Lightning puck carrier throughout most of the season, Boston is playing a 1-4 where one forechecker forces the puck carrier to pick a side of the rink to pass the puck where the other two wingers are waiting to pounce with the defenseman in a line with the forwards waiting for that neutral zone turnover to turn things the other way. The result has seen Tampa Bay wind up with eight giveaways in that period, which is normally not even done in the course of a game.