What happens when you have a team that can’t score (Rangers) and a team that can’t win on the road (Tampa) get together for a little Monday Night Hockey?

Well if you are a fan of the Blueshirts (3-6-1) you hope that the Lightning roadshow continues to sputter. The Bolts have given up first period goals in each of their three road losses this season. The Rangers can only hope that streak continues tonight as they are a woeful 0-5-1 when the opponent scores first.

But the caveat for the Rangers – the lowest scoring team in the league with 16 goals – is that they can’t put the puck behind the opposing goalie. The Blueshirts goal total for the year coming into tonight’s game is seven more than Vinnie Prospal of the Bolts who leads his side with nine goals and 12 points.

Tampa is 5-3-1 on the year with all their wins coming at home. Their five game home win streak ended Saturday night as Buffalo eked out a 4-3 OT win. After getting into fights in the Bolts two previous games Vincent Lecavalier (5-6-11) let tough guy Andre Roy drop the gloves in the Buffalo game. It may have been the wrong time for Lecavalier to end his mean streak as he ended the night with a powerplay marker and an assist. The only thing missing on his CV for the evening was a fight to collect the coveted Gordie Howe Hat Trick.

Dan Boyle is expected to make his first start of the season tonight for the Lightning. The Bolts have no other significant injuries and once again the Rangers are without the services of Sean Avery, Marty Straka and Ryan Callahan.

We’ll have a summary following the game.

Puck on!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.