Hope's the child of what luck brings: Lightning 2 @ Blackhawks 0

So that sucked. And I hate dwelling on suckage, so let's keep this short and bitter.

It took the Lightning 7 or 8 seconds before they could score on the first power play opportunity of the evening, after Hjalmarsson took his favorite delay of game penalty. Tampa Bay will end up with just four more shots on goal in the second period but the Hawks would be unable to break past the perimeter and take better shots at Mike Smith. They'll pressure more towards the third period, but nothing really dangerous will happen. Finally, as the clock wound down to the end of regulation, with Crawford pulled for the empty net, the Lightning will drive that final nail in the coffin and win the game 2-0. If you think this recap is unnaturally short-- then clearly you weren't watching the game. This was about all that happened for all three periods.

See ya Tuesday, Habs.

Observations:

• Am I the only one that nearly had a heart attack when St Louis and Lecavalier got a scoring chance with Leddy and Campoli standing in the way?
• Niklas Hjalmarsson gets a delay of game penalty: drink! What is wrong with this boy? Anyone who says he used to have more patience with the puck may be onto something, but to be honest, I remembered him taking many DoG penalties last year too. I think it's just a really nasty habit he can't break.
• Lightning look like they're blocking everything in sight. Actually, check that. They are. Not to take anything away from Smith, because he did stop quite a few good chances, but for the most part, the Hawks couldn't find any clear lanes to shoot through.
• But that is still entirely too much passing that they did on one of their power play chances.
• So this is what a one-line team looks like.
• Did someone tell Foley something we don't know about Dave Bolland? Twice tonight he mentioned Bolland doing something on the ice.
• The Hawks will stay in 8th place even though Dallas and Calgary win their games tonight (which at the time of this writing they look like they're about to do) but that means they're just inching a little bit closer to grab that last playoff spot from us. I wish we could say the team was responsible for putting that distance between ourselves and the Stars/Flames, but to be honest, the Stars helped us keep 8th seed. They may not as this season dies down