Game 68: Lightning at Flyers

Tampa Bay Lightning: 26-33-7, 59 points
Philadelphia Flyers: 33-26-8, 74 points

Mike Smith v. Martin Biron

After the difficult blow out loss against Buffalo, the Flyers will try again to create some distance between themselves and the non playoff teams tonight. However, the Lightning have provided a lot of trouble for the Flyers as of late, no matter where they are in the standings. Tampa is 2-1-0 against the Flyers this year, and those wins were by margins of 2 and 3 goals.

Martin Biron will be back in net tonight. He struggled against the Sabres, allowing 5 goals on 18 shots before being pulled in favor of Antero Niittymaki.

The Lightning have a different look since we've seen them last. One of their top players, Vinny Prospal, obviously plays with the Flyers again. They also traded Brad Richards, one of their better forwards. In both trades, the Lightning didn't want to wait around for some young hot shot to rise through the system. They acquired NHL talent. Captain Picard, picked up for Prospal, has already scored a goal with the team. From Dallas, they got goalie Mike Smith, who we'll see tonight, as well as Jeff Halpern and Jussi Jokinen. They may have lost two of their top line players, but in return, they got depth and a new guy in goal.

Right now, the line of Upshall-Carter-Knuble is probably the hottest. Carter has scored a bunch of goals lately, and Upshall and Knuble have been chipping in as well. There's a reason these guys are playing so well. They're physical players who can get in on the forecheck and grind things out against the opponent. When things aren't going well, it's up to players like this to work hard and score some tough goals to get the team out of the slump. This line did it, and it's time for other lines to get in on the action as well.

Bill Meltzer has scratches, including Danny Briere.

The big story after the Sabres game is the too many men on the ice no-call that led to the eventual game winning goal. I hate hearing about this just as much as everyone else, but what do you expect? It's par for the course for officials in the league now. These are the same guys who take two seconds between thinking about blowing the whistle and doing it, raise their arms when players fart on goalies and jump in between when two players look at each other during stoppages. They just can't do the job, and it's a shame they cost teams goals. I don't know how much of a difference it made. the Flyers were outplayed completely in that third period.