There’s a team in the Atlantic division that has been a contender for the past several years, and they’ve been struggling of late. And no, it’s not Toronto. The Tampa Bay Lightning entered yesterday with a 2-5-3 record in their last 10 games, and that was before they got their teeth kicked in by Carolina where they lost 6-0, were outshot 38-14, and had 34% of the expected goals. Tampa managed only 4 shots through the first two periods — they actually had 0 shots in the entire second period. Zero! Zilch! Nada! Kaput! Bupkis!
This is a game after they were pretty outplayed by the Buffalo Sabres, where the coach benched all three of Stamkos, Point and Kucherov and said this after the game:
Here’s Jon Cooper’s full response on Kucherov, Point and Stamkos not playing in the third period.