Yesterday before the game, I talked about some things I wanted to see. Today, I can start to talk about some of those things and also some general thoughts about last night’s opening victory by the Tampa Bay Lightning over the New Jersey Devils.
The top line didn’t look great. They rarely seemed to get the kind of time and space in the offensive zone to operate like the second and third lines did. Even the fourth line out-possessed them at even strength for much of the first couple of periods. The line did even things out over the third period when the Lightning really dominated the Devils.