Move along, nothing to see here (Lightning vs Pens, 3/31/10)

I told Damian that I would do this recap, despite how I despise doing them for trap teams. Congratulations, Lightning, you did your job well. You managed to stifle the Pens. You kept the shooters mostly to the outside and Mike Smith didn’t have to do too much work. You filled the shooting lanes when you had to simply because the Pens went to the point on nearly ever possession in your zone. The Pens had few chances and Mike Smith looked HUGE in that net.

On that note, The Pens did not bring their “A” game or the “A” effort. Much like the rest of the free world, I happened to see a 5 minute powerplay buffet  for the Pens that just got squandered away. If there was ever a time to make a statement, that would have been the time to do it. It was early in the first period, and you just watched your teammate get crushed by a bad hit (more on that in a minute). I would safely say the desire wasn’t there, and I know it. When Bill Guerin steps up to throw down with the league leader in PIM, that says it all right there. Guerin saw it too, and if you’ve never played any competitive hockey, this is one of the ways to instill motivation. No one followed him, no one stepped up their game after that. Well, one guy did. Thank you, Mr. Fleury, in an otherwise boring game, you still managed to get me to say “WTF?”. This game is easily 4 or 5 to 0 if not for him. I still don’t get the MAF haters and I don’t seek to understand them either.

Well, then there is this. Matt Lashoff lays a hit on Ruslan Fedotenko that stunned even me. I instantly saw the head movement on Feds and thought about his neck. It was a grisly hit, grisly enough for several non-penguin fans to reach out to me via Twitter to remark about the ugliness of the hit. These people were not unaware of my stance in the Cooke/Savard debacle. That says a lot right there. It was a hit from behind on a player that was vulnerable, not a headshot. This will probably not fall under the new rule, so don’t expect anything to happen. Feds returned to the game and continued to play. In the last game against Tampa, Downie led into the knee of Crosby and merely got a $1000 fine for it.  Mat Lashoff , in his first NHL game, saw 49 seconds of ice time and got 15 minutes in PIM. Congratulations, nice way to make a statement on how your career may end up. I seriously doubt that anything will happen here with this incident, but it did make me realize how much I miss BGL on the roster and I seriously question anything Vinny Lecavalier has to say about anything anymore. I also don't get how Matt Cooke gets a roughing call in a sea of TB players. I started it, so I will use it here, whatever happened there, #blamemattcooke. Oh, before I forget someone needs to remind Mike Smith, if you are going to the corners, be prepared to get hit.

That game was tough enough to watch, let alone try to detail it down for a recap.