Wednesday, 4 a.m.
If the game was about statements, here is what the Tampa Bay
lightning had to stay in their game against the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday night.
-- It's going to be chippy.
-- It's going to be combative.
-- And in the end, the Lightning will be underdogs again.
The backsliding Bolts lost their fourth straight game, losing to Toronto 4-3. Since the teams are scheduled to
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meet in the first round of the playoffs, it was seen as a preview of what may occur in the post season.
For the Bolts, however, the overriding message is that they team isn't ready yet. The Bolts are 3-7 in their last 10 games and have just 10 wins in their last 28.
The Bolts have given up 23 goals in their last four games.
"It was a weird game," Lightning Coach Jon Cooper said. "I don’t know if anyone got anything out of that game. Clearly there was a mandate to call some penalties, and there were a lot of them (the Lightning had eight power plays, the Leafs had six).
“There was zero intensity in that game," Cooper said. "None. It may have looked like it from the stands. It was an exhibition game. It wasn’t even a regular season game."
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 20 shots, but he allowed four to score.
Alex Killorn, Nick Perbix and Mikhail Sergachev scored for Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay is home at Amalie Arena against Detroit at 7. p.m. on Thursday.
