The last time the Tampa Bay Lightning saw the Boston Bruins, the Bruins skated off with an 8-2 blowout. The Lightning were hoping to return the favor when they took on Boston at the St. Pete Times Forum Tuesday night. The Lightning were also hoping to play well at home, where they currently have the 2nd best record in the NHL. What the Lightning didn't realize when they took the ice was that they would be facing two opponents, the Bruins and the officiating.
The Bruins got off to a quick start in this one when Michael Ryder put the Bruins on the board less then a minute into the game. With the Bruins on the power play, Mark Recchi's shot took an awful bounce off the boards, right too Ryder, who beat Lightning goalie Dan Ellis to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. The Lightning would respond with a goal of their own at the 7:28 mark of the first when Steven Stamkos batted home a rebound on a scramble in front. For Stamkos, it was his 29th goal of the season, and 13th on the power-play.
Into the second, the Bruins would retake the lead when Steven Kampfer scored his first goal of the year on a cross ice pass from Marc Savard, just after the Boston power play expired, reestablishing the Bruins' lead at 2-1. The Bolts would once again respond when captain Vincent Lecavalier picked up his own rebound and put a wrap-around home past Boston goalie Tim Thomas. The goal at the 14:02 mark of the second to tie the score at two. For Lecavalier, it was his 7th goal of the year and his 4th goal in 3 nights for the suddenly on fire captain.
Early in the third, the Bruins retook the lead when Brad Marchand put home a rebound for his 5th goal of the year. The original shot was blocked and ping ponged to Marchand who beat a down and out Ellis to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead. The Lightning tied it back up when Marty St. Louis received a cross-ice pass from Stamkos, beating Tim Thomas. For St. Louis, the goal at the 10:50 mark was his 15th of the year.
That is when the controversy started. Stamkos threw what appeared to be a clean shoulder-to-shoulder hit on Bruins forward Gregory Campbell. Stamkos was incorrectly sent off for boarding on the play, and Mark Recchi scored on the ensuing power-play to win the game for the Bruins.
The play, and the non-call on the interference resulting in the goal have Lightning players and coaches frustrated over the officiating.
"He had the puck," Stamkos said. "I thought shoulder-to-shoulder. Coaches watched it on the replay and said it was shoulder. Obviously he went into the boards pretty hard, but I was not trying to hurt the guy. I don't know why it was a penalty."
"For that to be the deciding factor, that was tough to swallow," Stamkos said.
Coach Guy Boucher did not disagree with Stamkos' assessment of the play.
"Not a penalty," Boucher said. "It's a shoulder-to-shoulder hit and then Bergenheim gets picked at the blue line and they score because of that, so that one is a little hard to digest."
"I am not going to point fingers at my players, they battled hard, they did enough to win this game, and it wasn't decided in something that I could control," Boucher said.
This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2010.