Dwayne Roloson or Mike Smith?
It was the question of the past 48 hours that was not answered until thirty minutes before game time.
After Monday night’s result, it will most likely not be answered for another 48 hours, through no fault of anyone involved.
Tonight’s answer, Mike Smith, played a great game in a surprise start, but got almost no goal support, in the 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins. The setback put the Lightning on the verge of elimination, trailing in the best of seven series 3-2.
Now, the question will remain, Dwayne Roloson or Mike Smith? Perhaps the bigger question should have been how you beat Tim Thomas. What appeared to be an easy answer suddenly has become much more difficult.
The Lightning got out of the gates quickly in this one, when Steven Stamkos broke in on a 2-1 break with Simon Gagne. Stamkos got the pass to Gagne, who put a knuckle puck past Tim Thomas. Thomas appeared to get over just a bit late on the shot and just got beat on it. The Lightning dominated the first period, out-shooting the Bruins 14-4, but Tim Thomas turned away all but the Gagne goal. As it usually does in hockey, the inability to get more than one goal would come back to haunt the Lightning in a big way in this game. While the Bolts took a 1-0 lead into the intermission, the second period would be a bit more of a challenging frame for them.
