lightning Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Steve Yzerman Is Coming Back To Detroit, And It's About Friggin' Time!
It’s finally happening! Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman is spurning that lame expansion team in Seattle, and he’s ignoring lost franchises like the Rangers, and—of course—he kicked the Tampa Bay Chokemeisters to the curb, all so he could come home to Detroit. Yes, that thing that I knew in my heart o...

What The Hell Happened To The Lightning?
Six days in April can change a lot....

The Lightning Should Spend The Entire Summer With Paper Bags On Their Heads
Never has an NHL team had more reason to be embarrassed. First period of Game 1 aside, the Tampa Bay Lightning who won 62 games in the regular season failed to show up in their first-round series against the tremendously underestimated Columbus Blue Jackets, and they paid the price. As the Lightning...

The Lightning Look Like Toast
“We’re still playing Tuesday. We’re still alive.” That’s Lightning head coach Jon Cooper giving an exhaustive list of everything positive about this opening-round series for Tampa, which could indeed end on Tuesday, just not in a way he or anyone else could have ever predicted....
![The Lightning Dug Themselves Into A 2-0 Hole, Then Nikita Kucherov Made Things Worse [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/ealuylr8ju7f7dxze85z.jpg)
The Lightning Dug Themselves Into A 2-0 Hole, Then Nikita Kucherov Made Things Worse [Update]
Now that the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning have played two playoff games against each other, let’s check in on the team that Vegas all but guaranteed would have a spot in the Stanley Cup final:...

The Columbus Blue Jackets Are Not Here To Get Steamrolled
Some fans say that the 3-0 lead when you’re the Presidents’ Trophy winners playing Game 1 at home in the first round against an eight seed from Ohio is the most dangerous lead in hockey, and the Tampa Bay Lightning found that out the hard way in their 4-3 upset loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on W...

This Is The Lightning At Their Most Beautiful
The Lightning and the Capitals are playing an awesome, intense back-and-forth game tonight, and Tampa Bay took a 4-3 lead in the second period on a PP goal that was pretty much the pinnacle of what their forwards can achieve....

Are The Lightning So Good That They Didn't Need To Get Better?
Every Cup winner since 2010 has made a deadline (or deadlineish) trade. The Lightning stood pat. So either Tampa Bay is going to regret not trying to make the NHL’s best team just a little better, or they’re going to buck some recent history. But, then again, no Cup winner, no team, since 2010 or ev...

Are The Lightning So Good That They Didn't Need To Get Better?
Every Cup winner since 2010 has made a deadline (or deadlineish) trade. The Lightning stood pat. So either Tampa Bay is going to regret not trying to make the NHL’s best team just a little better, or they’re going to buck some recent history. But, then again, no Cup winner, no team, since 2010 or ev...

Nikita Kucherov's Season Is Unlike Any We've Seen In A Long Time
Right now it feels impossible to stop Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov. In the team’s 2-1 win over the Sabres on Thursday night, Kucherov scored the lone goal for his team, finishing a 2-on-1 for his 100th point of the season, and notched the clincher in the shootout. Kucherov had 85 point...

Andrei Vasilevskiy Was Bug-Eyed With Disbelief At His Own Save
It was maybe not a game you’d have expected much excitement from. The Lightning lead the entire rest of the NHL, by a healthy margin, and haven’t lost in regulation since November. The Flyers, on the other hand, are scraping the bottom of the East and have already canned their coach and GM. But a mi...

The Difference In The East Could Be Andrei Vasilevskiy
In a just world, the Lightning and Maple Leafs would meet in the Eastern Conference final. But it is not a just world, and because the two clear best teams in the East also happen to be the two best teams in the Atlantic Division, the NHL’s playoff format puts the two on track for a second-round sho...

Steve Yzerman Is Leaving Tampa And Hell Yeah Motherfucker He Is Definitely Coming To Detroit
Mission accomplished! Mark it the hell down. Steve Yzerman is finally coming back home to Detroit to save the godforsaken Red Wings. At least, that’s the only logical conclusion one can draw from today’s news:...

The Capitals Rained Fire On The Lightning<em></em>
It was a dream start for the Washington Capitals tonight—or for any team on the road in a Game 7. Just a minute into the deciding match-up of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Lightning, the Caps’ all-time best player dramatically announced his importance. On a cross-ice pass from Tom Wilson...

Braydon Coburn Made The Mistake Of Trying To Fight Tom Wilson<em></em>
A small scrap in the first period of the Capitals-Lightning Game 7 sent Tampa’s Braydon Coburn and Washington’s Tom Wilson to the box for two minutes each. When that time was up, Wilson wanted to escalate the violence, and Coburn foolishly decided to try and stand his ground in an old-fashioned hoc...

The Capitals Were Finally Flawless
It wasn’t Andrei Vasilevsky’s fault, but it’s hard to beat perfection. The Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender stopped 31 of 33 Capitals shots tonight in Washington’s 3-0 win over the Bolts in Game 6. Several of those saves were spectacular—though unsurprising for anyone who had seen Vasilevsky’s previou...

The Lightning Power Play Is A Thing To Behold
The numbers are intimidating. The Tampa Bay Lightning had the league’s third best power play during the regular season, at 23.9 percent. They have the best power play of any team left alive, at 30.8 percent. They are 6-of-14 on the power play against the Capitals. They have scored a power-play goal ...

The Lightning Scored Three Beautiful Goals And The Capitals Only Scored Two
It might seem a bit tedious to go through all the goals in the Lightning’s 4-2 Game 4 win over the Capitals on Thursday night, which evened the Eastern Conference Finals at two games apiece. But bear with me—in the tensest game of the series so far, every scoring play (minus the empty netter with tw...

It Was Never Going To Be Easy For The Capitals
The Washington Capitals came crashing back down to earth tonight in a 4-2 loss to the Lightning in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, shrinking the series lead of these briefly unbeatable-looking Caps down to 2-1....

The Capitals Look Unbeatable And I Don't Know What's Happening
I’m sorry, what? The Caps spanked the Lightning last night. That’s two consecutive spankings! What is going on here? It would be a little too psychologically neat to posit that all the Ovechkin-era Capitals ever needed was to be underdogs, finally without pressure. Or that once they were finally abl...