So it’s Tampa Bay’s first trip to St. Louis in four years - yup, that’s right, four years. As we drove to the ScottTrade Center today - I think that’s at least the third different name for the building since the team was here last - and as we look off toward the Arch, it couldn’t fully be seen. The weather here has been wacky and dismal. It was 75 degrees when I took off last night at 6 p.m. but the low tonight will drop into the 20s. There is a major weather system moving through the area that is dumping all kinds of Tampa-like rain on the region and some areas to the northwest are getting hit with snow.

What does that all mean you ask? Well, as I looked toward the famous St. Louis Arch and the gateway to the west, there was a bunch of fog blocking the view. You could see the bottom parts of the the structure, but that was about it. The top was completely blocked by the fog. Guess it wouldn’t have been a good day to go to the top, eh?

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Bit of a surprise today to see that Andre Roy will not be in the lineup. Apparently Roy and Tortorella got into a bit of a disagreement on the bench during the Florida game on Saturday that got a little heated at times, so Roy is being benched for disciplinary reasons. Lightning coach John Tortorella has praised Roy in recent days, and even praised him this morning, for giving the team good minutes. So I don’t think this is anything that will linger or carry over for an extended time and I would garner to bet that Roy will be back in the lineup before the road trip ends Saturday in Atlanta.

With Roy out, the line combos were a bit jumbled on the bottom six:
Brad Richards-Vinny Lecavalier-Marty St. Louis
Jan Hlavac-Vinny Prospal-Michel Ouellet
Craig MacDonald-Chris Gratton-Nick Tarnasky
Mathieu Darche-Andreas Karlsson-Jason Ward (back in after being a healthy scratch on Saturday)

Johan Holmqvist is in net for the Lightning after Karri Ramo started the past two.

Nothing new on the sale front today. Word is things are still going in a positive direction and a purchase agreement could be announced by the end of the week.

FIRST INTERMISSION

The score may be 1-1 right now, but the Blues are the much better team right now. I’m not keeping track of scoring chances, but I would have to venture that St. Louis has a hefty advantage in that category in the first period even though the shots are 13-7.

Tampa Bay is having a hard time getting the puck in deep and struggling through the neutral zone. And at times, St. Louis has really controlled the puck in the Lightning zone.

Paul Ranger finished off a broken play to give Tampa Bay the 1-0 lead 6:01 into the period, but it didn’t last long as Brad Boyes answered 21 seconds later as he was left unchecked on the left wing inside the circle.

Bottom line, the Lightning are going to have to play a lot better if they want to have a chance to actually get a win in St. Louis, with the franchise has not done since the inagural season in 1992-93. Yup, it’s been that long. I was still on college at that time, and yes, that was a long time agol

SECOND INTERMISSION

A bit of a better period. Tampa Bay didn’t look like deers caugth in the headlights in that period.

St. Louis scores his 20th on a deflection on the power play, the fifth consecutive season in which he has reached the 20-goal mark. He needs 10 more to reach 30 for five consecutive seasons.

The Blues answered with a power play goal of their one which I’m still trying to figure out. Goal was announced to Keith Tkachuk but NHL.com had the goal to Eric Brewer. Either way, Brewer’s shot hit something, popped into the air and landed inside the goal with 5:58 left in the second period.

The Blues have a 1:04 of power play remaining to start the third period. And the third has not been kind to Tampa Bay. Not an ominous feeling heading into the final 20 minutes as Tampa Bay tries to win its fifth consecutive road game.