That was a much better period for Tampa Bay. I know that sounds somewhat hard to believe since the Bruins tied the score (quick stat, Tampa Bay 0-0-3 when tied after two periods, Boston is 4-1-1). The Lightning looked more in control in that period and didn’t appear to be scrambling around as much as they did in the first. Tampa Bay also had some sustained pressure and didn’t have many against them in their own end.

On the one goal the Lightning did score, I’m still trying to figure out where Steve Eminger was (or Paul Ranger). Ranger chased the puck into the corner where Marc Savard was heading for a loose puck dumped down low by Milan Lucic. Eminger was along the boards (haven’t seen a replay yet). Well, when two defenseman vacate the front of the net like that, it generally leads to breakdowns and that’s exactly what happed as Phil Kessel went to that open space and converted Savard’s pass at 12:21 to tie the game. Marty St. Louis was trailing Kessel on the play, but I can’t believe that it was totally St. Louis’ responsibility in that instance. Both defenseman can’t leave the front of the net unprotected.

During the second period, I received an email from Tim, who commented on Tampa Bay’s inability to retrieve a puck on the dump and chase and mentioned a particular play in which Vinny Prospal peeled off on the chase for fear of getting hit.

I’ll say this about that observation, it’s partially true. Sometimes guys just have that fear. But the bigger issue to me is how bad of a dump-and-chase team the Lightning are, they don’t really have any strong wall players, haven’t since the days of Fredrik Modin. But Tampa Bay is forced to be a dump-and-chase team because they have nobody who can carry the puck into the zone and they don’t have a defenseman that can carry the puck up the ice to either force a defender to committ before passing a puck to allow entry into the zone or carry the puck straight on through into the zone.