Tampa Bay Lightning Strike Phoenix Coyotes Ending Long Streak
Phoenix couldn’t handle Tampa Bay at their home ground as the Bolts finally put an end to their 8-game winning streak Wednesday night, which began after consecutive losses from San Jose and Vancouver continuing up until now. It looks like Tampa Bay has some
sort of fetish for the Coyotes, as both teams last met in late October 2010; Phoenix was shutout 3-0. Being the number two team in the Eastern Conference, the Lightning isn’t far above Phoenix, only ahead by 2 points.
Over 15,000 fans showed up to watch both teams go head to head at the St. Pete Times Forum Arena in Tampa, Florida, and they weren’t let down. Bolts remained dominant throughout the event, grappling the Coyotes by the neck as they struggled to breathe as
each period passed by.
"It's flat embarrassing," Phoenix captain http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/players/profile?playerId=217 said. It definitely was, as Phoenix lost badly to Tampa Bay 8-3.Phoenix coach Dave Tippett was thoroughly in a frustrated mood,
criticizing his team as a car without any fuel, and a match he would just like to forget after leaving.
Big Contributions
Teddy Purcell scored a hat trick for the first time in his 3-year career and was extremely joyous on the occasion. "That was pretty cool," Purcell said. "My first hat trick since street hockey when I was 10 or 12, probably. You get a hat trick and, obviously,
the two points, it's a great night."
Martin St. Louis registered double goals both in the first period along with an assist, while Vincent Lecavalier got a goal in and picked up a whopping 4 assists, something that he has always wanted to do. Steven Stamkos who is the lead scorer of the NHL
this season, made his night even more wonderful by scoring his 41th goal to raise his record even higher. Adam Hall was the last contributor for Tampa Bay, taking his team to an unreachable 8 with a little over 15 minutes remaining in the final period.
"It felt pretty good to beat these guys," Bolts centre Lecavalier said. "They were on a streak."
You could call it Good Luck
Tampa got off to a fantastic start, which if any team would have done would have made it super hard for the opposite to recover. You could blame the Phoenix defensemen for allowing them to get near goalie Jason LaBarbera who has to try and deflect three
times as much attempts as counterpart Dwayne Roloson had to, also another reason was that Phoenix had all the penalty minutes in the first, giving Lightning over 8 minutes power play time.
"I think our minds, our bodies were in the right place," Bolts coach Guy Boucher said.
The Bolts took major advantage of those precious power play minutes, scoring 3 of their 5 goals during that time, making it 5-0 within the first 20 minutes. Captain Shane Doan felt the burn, penalized twice by the referee for once holding and the other interfering
with Roloson.
Lecavalier opened up both opportunities for Purcell who created a 7-0 difference with 12 minutes left in the second, Martin Hanzal took one to Roloson making the Coyotes first of the night. With a lot left to do, came under pressure. Hall was the one who
made Phoenix’s realization of a nightmare come true after scoring within the first 5 minutes, adding fire to their misery. Kyle Turris and David Schlemko both added one each for Phoenix, but couldn’t do anymore as time was not on their side.
No doubt Tampa deserved their hard earned victory.
"Especially this time of year, it's all about results," St. Louis said. "We went after the result and got what we wanted."
Let’s see if they can keep their streak snapping performance rolling, as they face the New Jersey Devils on Friday who are also coming at them with 8 consecutive wins, now having the most in the NHL. The Coyotes sure wish that their game on Friday could
have been replaced with this one, as they go to Columbus to face the brittle Blue Jackets, they have now fallen down to the 4th position in the Western Conference under the San Jose Sharks.
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