Friday, April 23, 2004
The return of Vinny.
Vinny Lecavalier, who was missing from the scoresheet in Round 1 of the playoffs like George W. Bush from the National Guard, was a beast tonight, scoring twice and setting up another as the Bolts bashed Montreal 4-0 in their second round playoff opener tonight at the Forum.
Lecavalier took the game over in the second period, and his assist may have been more impressive than his two goals. With the game scoreless early in the second, Vinny did his best John Tonelli impersonation, fightning like a maniac for the puck in the corner, and then coming out along the side boards and stealing back the puck, dropping it to Marty St. Louis in the corner, who one-timed a pass to Ruslan Fedotenko in the slot that Fedotenko buried. Lecavalier made it 2-0 with a nice deflection of a St. Louis point shot, and then in the third made it 3-0 with a great move coming out of the corner, beating a defenseman and flipping it past Jose Theodore. The Lightning ended up chasing Theodore from the game when Dmitri Afanasenkov made it 4-0 off another Hab turnover.
Meanwhile, Khabibulin got his fourth shutout of the playoffs, and it was without doubt his easiest. Montreal only managed 21 shots, and nearly half of them came in the first period. As the score indicated, it was total domination tonight, and St. Louis, who ended up with three assists himself, had a couple of partial breakaways that he failed to convert. The score could have easily been 7-0.
The only possible negative from the game is that the Lightning may think the rest of the series will come this easily and just "show up" in Game 2. While the Lightning are the better team, Montreal will undoubtedly put up a better fight in the games to come than they did tonight.
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Lecavalier took the game over in the second period, and his assist may have been more impressive than his two goals. With the game scoreless early in the second, Vinny did his best John Tonelli impersonation, fightning like a maniac for the puck in the corner, and then coming out along the side boards and stealing back the puck, dropping it to Marty St. Louis in the corner, who one-timed a pass to Ruslan Fedotenko in the slot that Fedotenko buried. Lecavalier made it 2-0 with a nice deflection of a St. Louis point shot, and then in the third made it 3-0 with a great move coming out of the corner, beating a defenseman and flipping it past Jose Theodore. The Lightning ended up chasing Theodore from the game when Dmitri Afanasenkov made it 4-0 off another Hab turnover.
Meanwhile, Khabibulin got his fourth shutout of the playoffs, and it was without doubt his easiest. Montreal only managed 21 shots, and nearly half of them came in the first period. As the score indicated, it was total domination tonight, and St. Louis, who ended up with three assists himself, had a couple of partial breakaways that he failed to convert. The score could have easily been 7-0.
The only possible negative from the game is that the Lightning may think the rest of the series will come this easily and just "show up" in Game 2. While the Lightning are the better team, Montreal will undoubtedly put up a better fight in the games to come than they did tonight.
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