A WILD NIGHT IN FLORIDA………… AND IT WASN’T THE WEATHER
The Winnipeg Jets continued their four game road swing last night in Tampa Bay to play the Lightning, it turned out to be on the most wild games that the Jets and the Lightning would be a part of so far.
A common theme in the National Hockey League lately have been the referee core that is employed to control the games in which we enjoy from the cross checking incident in Calgary with Dennis Widemen to last night when Paul Maurice was tossed out of the game by the referee.
The game started out quite for both teams, as both teams came out very strong defensively until 15:38 when Victor Hedman popped a beauty of a shot past Ondrej Pavelec to put the Tamp Bay Lightning up 1-0. Hedman was set up by a great little saucer pass from J.T Brown.
The Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t stop at 17:52 Alex Killorn found a streaking Johnathan Marchessault who has been having a great season making the most of his call up from the Syracuse Crunch. Marchessault made no mistake on the play popping his seventh goal passed Pavelec.
The Tampa Bay Lightning added insult to injury when the big guns got together for the Tampa Bay Lightning when Andrej Sustr, and Ryan Callahan got the passing game going, Callahan found an unguarded Steven Stamkos at the top of the circle and Stamkos blasted a hum dinger of a shot past Pavelec and the 19:39 point of the first heading into the intermission up 3-0.
Although the second period was short on scoring with only Tyler Myers popping in his sixth goal on a pass from Adam Lowry. There was a total of five penalties in the second period with tempers starting to rise with Blake Wheeler and Anton Stralman getting matching roughing penalties.
Bryan Little took a huge hit in the neutral zone in the second period from Victor Hedman Little seemed to lose his balance and dropped his head before heading to the dressing room as per NHL concussion protocol, Little didn’t return to the game and Hedman did not receive a penalty on the play.
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Winnipeg Jets Head Coach Paul Maurice lost it and got into a very heated discussion with the officials as head shots have been a huge source of conflict the last couple of years, the Officials finally tossed Maurice out of the game which would set a fire under the Jets heading into the third period of play.
The Winnipeg Jets were a different team coming on to the ice to start the third period down 3-1, the Jets have a horrible record heading into the third period trailing in a game with a record of 0-21-3.
The Winnipeg Jets let Alex Killorn slip into their zone early in the period putting the home side of 4-1 and Jets would start a scoring streak that is unheard of by the Jets but the Maurice incident had set the Jets on fire.
The young core of the Jets got together on the Power Play with J.T Brown sitting in the box for high sticking Mark Scheifele, Jacob Trouba found a streaking Scheifele who carried the puck into the zone and wired a shot past Tampa Bay back stopper to cut the Lightning lead to two goals.
While Anthony Peluso was sitting in the box for a boarding call on J.T Brown the Jets got the puck under control and Joel Armia who is making the most of his current call up from the Manitoba Moose found Captain Andrew Ladd who scored to bring the Jets with in one, the goal gave Ladd 14 on the season.
The Jets didn’t stop there at 12:44 of the third period Scheifele found Andrew Ladd who tossed the puck at the and tied the game give Ladd 15 goals on the season.
At 14:11 of the third period Scheifele took a bad penalty to put the Lightning on the Power Play at a crucial point in the game. While short handed Dustin Byfuglien and Blake Wheeler connected on some great passing and found Mathieu Perrault who scored the go ahead goal leading the Lightning 5-4.
However the Winnipeg Jets lead didn’t last long when at 15:02 of the third when Nikita Kucherov tied the game with his 24 goal to send the game into three on three overtime period which solved nothing, the shootout was next.
The shootout went five rounds with Ladd, scoring for the Jets and in the fifth round with the shootout scored 1-1 Steven Stamkos was next Stamkos took the puck from the faceoff circle and took off towards the Jets net with Pavelec coming out to work the angles, Stamkos worked the puck and forced Pavelec back and finally Stamkos put the puck in the net winning the shootout 2-1 and the game 6-5.
Reporters gathered around Maurice in the hall way after the game to get his take on the Little incident and the heated conversation with game officials.
I was upset because you see these guys every day and work with the guys every day you care about the guys their wives their families I seemed to be more concerned about the hit then anyone else. Little was getting x-rays on his neck at press time last night with results coming out later this week.
The Lightning didn’t take the time to enjoy the win over the Jets after a major defensive break down Coach Jon Copper and the Lightning held a team meeting last night to go over game tape and see what went wrong.
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I am a married father of three I living in Northwestern Ontario about 5 hours from Winnipeg, I have been involved with hockey my whole life I started playing when I was 4 and played all the way up through high school and I still currently play hockey every Saturday night in the local mens league, I am a level 2 certified ref and I love to ref games from little kids to high school and the ladies league, I have even started doing lines for our Junior A team the English River Miners of the SIJHL. I also own Pinnacle Sports Management I do player placement most of my clients are in Europe but I have a couple in the SPHL I have also worked as a scout for a number of SIJHL teams.