I've made no secret about my living in Tampa. Similarly, I've made no secret about my employment by the Department of Defense. As is common with the job, my time in the Bay area is drawing to a close. My affinity for the Bolts, though, will endure.

Therein lies conflict: I'll be moving to the West coast (Sharks Country: ewww!) but still want to watch Lightning games. Help me please, Fellow Citizens of Raw Charge: what's better to get the most of my need to see the Bolts, NHL GameCenter Live or NHL Center Ice? What are some of the pros and cons to both?

A common-held assumption is NHL teams that rely on a single scorer for the majority of their goals are not successful during the season in which their leading scorer provides the most scoring for the team. That's a particularly troubling assumption--if held to be true--for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season: Steven Stamkos, while leading the NHL with 37 goals (as of Thursday afternoon when I computed the stats herein) supplies nearly a quarter (24.18%, to be specific) of the goals scored by the Bolts this year. To explore the validity of this assumption, I explore goal-scoring statistics for the past five seasons (including the present season), and the results were surprising to me.

First, let me orient you to my tables. Each table is formatted identically. The Lightning's row in each table is blue with silver font. For every table except the one for 2011-2012, the eventual Stanley Cup winner is highlighted in Yellow. For the columns labelled "Goals," "Individual Goals," and "NHL Standing," the red outline shows the bottom three in each category, a green outline denotes the top three in each category. For example, thus far in 2011-2012, the three teams with the lowest scoring are the Wild, the Kings, and the Blue Jackets (121, 120, and 130 goals, respectively) and the Flyers, Red Wings, and Bruins have scored the most goals this season (181, 178, and 181 goals, respectively). On the column labelled "% of team goals scored," the percentage shown is the percent of team goals provided by the team's leading scorer in the third column. Red highlight with dark red text show the top three teams most reliant on their team's leading scorer, and the green box with dark green text represent the teams least reliant on their team's leading scorer. Lastly, all teams with a reliance on their leading scorer more than the league average is in bolded and italicized text. The charts below are arranged, from the left, current season, 2010-2011, 2009-2010, 2008-2009, and 2007-2008.

To be honest, I fully expected the teams that relied most on their individual goal leader to do the worst in the regular season. The tables I've compiled do not paint that picture at all. Over the past five seasons, there is little to be drawn from the relative reliance of a team on its leading scorer as to the team's regular-season success, or lack of it. From the 2007-2008 season through and including the current season, the 3 most reliant teams on their leading scorer (those teams, remember, that are shown with red boxes with dark red text) average finishing in the league between 14th and 15th place (14.6 on average), with the best regular season finish as #1 in the league (2010-2011 Vancouver Canucks) and the worst finish being #28 in the league (2007-2008 Atlanta Thrashers). Similarly, a team relying less on their particular goal-scoring leader can't expect to necessarily finish at the top of the league. For the same time period (2007-2008 through now), the three teams least reliant on their leading scorer averaged a *lower* finish in the regular season than those that were most reliant (average finish of 16.6)--the best position in the standings being this season's Boston Bruins (5th place overall), and the worst finish being the 2008-2009 New York Islanders, who relied on Kyle Okposo for only 9.09% of their season goals, but finished dead last in the league nevertheless.

So, if we can't draw any solid conclusions between reliance on individual scorers and team placement in the regular season, what about team goal scoring compared with the individual scoring? There's not a significant difference there, either. Over the five-year period in this study, the three most reliant teams on their team scoring leader averaged scoring 216.8 goals per season (high of 268 goals in 2008-2009 by the Washington Capitals, and low of 130 goals this season by the Islanders). By contrast, the three least reliant teams scored on average almost 10 goals more per season (226.7--high of 242 goals in 2008-2009 by the Montreal Canadiens, and a full-season low of 189). That 10-goal difference may not seem significant at the outset, but consider the goal difference between the playoff teams last year--if the Bolts had scored 10 goals fewer through the course of last season, they would have matched the goal total for the Carolina Hurricanes, who as we all remember didn't play hockey past the second week in April.

Let's now look at the reliance in the past five seasons of the winners of the Stanley Cup (including the #1 team in the league this season). Through the period of this analysis, the team that went on to win the Stanley Cup relied on their leading scorer for 12.2% of their team goals (from a high of 17.06% by Zetterberg and Detroit in 2007-2008, to a low of 6.15% by Lucic and Boston last year). Comparitively speaking, the league-wide team reliance percentages range between 16.04% (2007-2008) to 14.39% (2009-2010).

The surprise conclusion to the look at five years of scoring leaders and team reliance on those scoring leaders is any correlation is neither solid nor absolute. While team reliance on an individual scorer seems to point to a lower number of overall goals scored for the team, that difference (less than 10 goals over an 82-game season, or a mere 4%) is small and potentially insignificant.

(Editor's note: Promoted from the FanPosts)

As teams in the NHL begin serious pushes and posturing for playoff spots or tee times at their nearest golf course, focus begins to shift to the annual NHL Entry Draft. Recently, NHL Central Scouting released an updated ranking of the players eligible for this year’s draft, and three draft experts from NHL.com posted their mock draft results.

About the only players who are guaranteed to not be available at the Lightning’s current position are the top two players heading into this year’s draft, Nail Yakupov (RW, Sarnia [OHL]) and Ryan Murray (D, Everett [WHL]).

This short article is caveated with the understanding the draft position of the Lightning could change drastically up or down from their current position (#7).

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In this, the third installment of "Do They Hate Us?" I’ll update the statistics for the Lightning this season through the end of January. If you’ve not read them before, please take a moment or two (or 10 minutes if your read as slowly as I). You can find the first edition here, and a deeper look (as well as a look at the penalty statistics through the end of December 2011) here. As I started the last edition of "Do They Hate Us?" I will start this edition.

To re-orient you to the terms and statistics I used in this edition of the DTHU. First and foremost, this issue and continuing topic makes generous use of Power Play Opportunity (PPOP) statistics. For PPOP, only time in which one team is at least one man up counts as PPOP. To make the point more clearly, there is a notable difference between PPOP and the number of times a team’s opposition is penalized. The difference between the two is the number of matching penalties (either of the minor or major variety) and misconduct penalties (because they do not cause a Power Play in and of themselves).

Also worth noting is the difference in tallying a double-minor penalty. The NHL scores a double-minor penalty as two PPOP, but only one penalty against the offending team. An example of this is the Lightning's game versus the San Jose Sharks earlier this year. In the 3rd period, Michal Handzus received a double-minor for high-sticking--giving the Lightning two PPOP and giving the Sharks one penalty tally. Additionally, PPOP is counted for even the smallest amount of man advantage (i.e. 3 second 5-on-4 advantage counts as a single PPOP).

As always, numbers below zero (-3, for example) are in the Lightning’s opponents’ favor, whereas positive numbers are in the Bolts’ favor.

First, let’s look at the penalty statistics through the month of December (the table above). Red blocks denote season lows, and green blocks denote season highs in the respective categories. After finishing November with a penalty differential of -20, the Lighting continued their previous pace of taking penalties at a greater rate than their opponents on any given night, reaching season lows in game penalty differential (15th January versus the Penguins) and season penalty differential (21st January versus the Coyotes). Shifting over to the PPOP columns, we can see the PPOP differential consistently in the opponents’ favor (PPOP differential less than 0), the exceptions being the 5th, 12th, 13th, 17th, and 24th of January. The brightest spot so far this season was the game against the Blue Jackets on the 24th of January, where the Bolts had the advantage of +2 in PPOP differential over the team from Columbus. However, that was barely noticeable in the context of the whole season’s PPOP differential, where the Bolts hit their season low twice (-28, on 21st and 31st of January).

So, if we look at the season thus far (in the graph below), we find clearly the Lightning had a bad stretch from mid- to late-October, and second bad stretch that has lasted from Thanksgiving through the current stretch of games. Also included in the graph below is an orange trendline. It has, if ever-so-slightly, a positive slope—meaning brighter days should be ahead—but not much brighter.

Turning our attention to the league-wide penalty statistics, the table below shows each team and where that team ranks in the league from most penalized to least. The column to the extreme right of the table shows the increase in total penalties for each team. On the bottom of the chart, I’ve calculated the league average number of penalties (just under 226.5) and total penalties. On the right hand column, I’ve also calculated the average increase per team in penalties from the end of December (the last DTHU? Article)—just over 47 penalties. Also on the right column are red and green highlighted boxes—denoting the 5 most penalized teams in the month of January (red boxes) and the 5 least penalized teams in the month of January (green boxes). While the Lightning don’t fit into either category, they are the 7th most penalized team in the NHL in the month of January—a fact that will not improve the number of PPOP for the Bolts.

Let’s turn now to how the Lightning’s penalties compare with the team’s opponents thus far this season. The table below shows the opponent, number of games played against that particular opponent, and breaks down penalties and PPOP and the team differential of each of those categories. The last column averages those differences out over the span of all the games played this season between the Bolts and each particular team. On that column, the team with which the Bolts have the worst PPOP differential is highlighted in red (the Panthers) and the team against whom the Lightning enjoy the biggest PPOP advantage is in green (the Jets). In many ways the troubles for the Lightning at the beginning of the year is the story behind the differential with the Panthers. In particular, the home and home series in early October did the Lightning no favors—and those effects statistically are noticeable even this late in the season.

In summary, this season for penalties has in many ways mirrored the play of Our Team—started off on a bad note, improved slightly, and regressed for the last two months of 2011. The second half of the season hasn’t started off particularly well, either—though the team managed to have a 4-game winning streak to end the month. However, that 4-game streak wasn’t matching in PPOP or penalty differential. At this point, the evidence for a penalty or PPOP turnaround is fleeting, but if the Lightning manage to turn around their PPOP and penalty numbers, it could very well signal a turnaround in the team’s overall play.

There’s been a lot of emotional talk and statements back and forth about Vincent Lecavalier, captain of your Tampa Bay Lightning. It’s no wonder, really: when anyone signs a contract worth more in total than some countries’ gross domestic products (GDP), fans of that particular team expect the player to produce a lot, and produce consistently. Vinny is no exception. For years fans all across Bolts Nation have lamented and criticized The Captain’s production, pointing to his contract (11 years, worth $85 million, with an annual cap hit of just under $7.75 million per year according to CapGeek.com). In this article, I’ll take a deep look at Vinny’s career stats, compare them to his fellow Lightning forwards during his career, as well as compare him to his fellow All-Star forwards from his draft class (1998). In the spirit of full disclosure, I embarked on this research hoping to prove Vinny’s continued worth to the Lightning, but I was fully understanding the stats could show the exact opposite.

First, let’s look at Vinny’s numbers from year to year. The numbers are exactly what you expect from a forward of his caliber. However, the number that sticks out to me is Vinny’s +/- numbers--particularly those in recent years. Early in his career, one could make the argument that offensively-gifted forwards don’t grasp the defensive roles for a few years into their career, and Vinny was likely no different. However, after finishing the 2007-2008 campaign at a +2, he’s been at negative +/- since, finishing last year’s highly successful year (for the team) at a -16 (his worst year since 2008). This season, he’s on pace to have a +/- of -3.73 (through 44 games, extrapolated to 82 games). For the length of his career, his +/- total is -112, averaging -9.17. Though +/- is not a perfect stat, it can be seen as simple indicator of prowess defensively. Vinny’s career stats certainly don’t paint the picture of defensive skill (especially compared to fellow 1998 draftees Simon Gagne and Alex Tanguay, who have career +/- totals of +130 and +152, respectively).

Another surprise is the number of PIMs put up by The Captain. Never in his career has he had less than 23 PIMs--and that career low was his rookie campaign. His least discplined year was back in 2005-2006, where Vinny put up a very Ryan Malone-like 90 PIMs. This year’s not much better: he’s on pace to have more than 78 PIMs before the regular season is complete. His career average is a shade over 55 PIMs, a number he’s not been under since the 06-07 season, except for last year (43 PIM). So certainly Vinny’s not the poster child for the Lady Byng Trophy like his teammate, Marty St Louis.

Below are those same numbers, graphically represented. Two quick notes about the graph: 1) I’ve put colored boxes over the graph to separate the head coaching tenures during Vinny’s career--I’ve excluded coaches that did not coach a full season (yes, I’m talking about you Barry Melrose), and; 2) the thinner lines in the same color are logarithmic trendlines.

Notice the trendlines are going up. Statistically speaking, the projected dip in all the projected offensive totals for 2010 should be an abberation.

So, let’s now put those numbers into perspective with respect to The Captain’s team. To orient you to the graph upcoming, the number in parenthesis after the year on the x-axis (that’s the one on the bottom) is the number of forwards that made at least one appearance in the season for the Lightning in that year. This number is important because it puts perspective on the ranking for the team given to Vinny’s numbers. Also, like the Offensive Production graph above, I separated each coaching change with a colored box. I caution everyone still reading this article to give very low credit to the SHG stats for each year. Because there are so few SHGs in the NHL, and even fewer in the Lightning games (well, at least for our team), many of the years in which Vinny’s listed as tied for first or second place on the team (denoted by 1 (T) or 2 (T), respectively), though he may have scored 1, 2, or 0 SHG that season.

In the graph below, Vinny’s numbers are consistently in the top of the team in all the offensive categories (bottom of the graph is better--in other words ranking #1 on the team is good, ranking #23 is not good. On the other hand, ranking high on the team in PIM is not necessarily good--especially for a sniper/play-maker like Vinny). In fact, Vinny’s average ranking on the team is 1.8, 2.9, and 2.6 in goals, assists and points. That sort of production wasn’t accomplished in the first part of his career, either. Notice his average ranking on the team in every category is better since the Cup year (2004) than before, the exceptions being PPG, SHG and SOG.

Looking at the trend lines (all of them linear, for ease of visualization), we see a significant negative slope for the +/- trendline--not a good sign, especially for someone with minimal apparent defensive skill as Vinny. Another negative trendline slope is found on the PIM trendline--a good sign. All the other trendlines have a slight negative slope, indicating slightly higher team rankings are predicted statistically (remember, the better the rank on the team, the lower the number on the graph for the offensive statistics).

Those statistics are nice, but do not take into account injuries or other instances where Vinny’s playing time was affected. In the graph below, I’ve averaged his offensive statistics (G, A, P) against his TOI in the season listed at the bottom of the graph. Note that the 2011-2012 statistics are extrapolated from his statistics through 44 games. Again, I’ve put logarithmic trendlines on each of the offensive statistics and labeled them as such. Notice all the trendlines are pointing up--a sign for continued success for Vinny in the OZ. The only warning sign I can find here is the trendline for G/TOI is noticeably more flat than the other two.

The graphs above show pretty clearly--well, as clearly as possible--Vinny’s not quite at the peak of his offensive output yet. What will happen in the years to come--that is still up for debate.

Let’s compare Vinny’s career thus far with those of his fellow All-Stars also drafted in 1998: Jonathan Cheechoo, Pavel Datsuyk, Simon Gagne, Scott Gomez, Shawn Horcoff, Mike Ribiero, Brad Richards, and Alex Tanguay. In the chart below, it is very clear Vinny has more GP and G than his ASG alumni.

For the numbers closer together, it’s necessary to visit the data fields from which that graph was made. Below, each of the stats that are better than the average for these players (far right column) are in bold text. Note that Vinny is bettering the average of his draft class mates in all but two (PIM and +/-) categories.

Let’s compare salaries, then, shall we? It seems to be a major point of contention during any discussion of Vinny’s worth or unworth. According to CapGeek.com, Vinny has the 6th highest cap hit in the NHL. The top 5 are Alex Ovechkin ($9.5 million), Evgeni Malkin ($8.7 million), Sidney Crosby ($8.7 million), Eric Staal ($8.25 million), and Rick Nash ($7.8 million). Dany Heatley, are not far behind ($7.5 million each).

Considering all the data pointing still up toward further productive offensive years, and considering Vinny’s not only out-playing his draft class All-Star alumni (including Datsuyk) but also many of the players with higher cap hits than his, I think the evidence is pretty strong Vinny not only should stay a Lightning player for the foreseeable future, but also he will be a productive Bolt as well.

In the original post in what has become a series, I covered the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons of the Lightning and the Power Play Opportunities (PPOP) for them and for their opponents. The goal then was to prove or disprove the common complaint of Bolts Nation: the referees are biased against the Lightning and give more PPOP to their opponents than to Tampa's Team. In that post, I made the point (backed by historical statistics from the NHL's online repository) there was no bias of the referees--and if there is a bias, it's in favor of the Lightning.

That was then, this is now.

First, to re-orient you to the terms and statistics I used in this edition of the DTHU. First and foremost, the aforementioned PPOP. For PPOP, only time in which one team is at least one man down (or up) counts as PPOP. To make the point more clearly, there is a notable difference between PPOP and the number of times a team is penalized. The difference is matching penalties (either of the minor or major variety) and misconduct penalties (because they do not cause a Power Play in and of themselves).

Also worth noting is the difference in tallying a double-minor penalty. The NHL scores a double-minor penalty as two PPOP, but only one penalty against the offending team. An example of this is the Lightning's game versus the San Jose Sharks earlier this year. In the 3rd period, Michal Handzus received a double-minor for high-sticking--giving the Lightning two PPOP and giving the Sharks one penalty tally. Additionally, PPOP is counted for even the smallest amount of man advantage (i.e. 3 second 5-on-4 advantage counts as a PPOP).

With the introduction out of the way, let's look at the league-wide penalties this year. This year at this point, the Lightning are the 12th most penalized team in the league, racking up 188 penalties through the end of December. Leating the league is Philadelphia (226), and the team Lady Byng leader are the Sharks (142 penalties). The league average is just under 180 (179.43). With that in mind, the Lightning have played 17 of the 18 teams with fewer penalties called against them than the Lightning, and most of them (13 of 14 teams) have fewer penalties tallied against them than the league average. On the other side of the same coin, the Lightning have played 6 of the 11 more heavily penalized teams thus far this year (the 5 missing at the opening of January are Vancouver, Dallas, Anaheim, Edmonton, and the Kings). Keep these numbers in mind later; I believe they partially explain the lower PPOP numbers for the Bolts this year compared to years previous.

Comparing home and road penalties and PPOP, the numbers are about even:

Note that I've calculated the numbers in such a way as to depict negative numbers for statistical differences that are in the opposition's favor; differentials in the positive are beneficial to the Lightning. The mythical "home vs. away" penalties seem not to be a factor--there are 11 more penalties for the Lightning at home than their opposition, and on the road there are 9 more penalties against the Lightning. A difference, sure--but a difference that is small: remember, the Lightning at the end of December have played 37 games (16 at home, 21 on the road). Averaged out over the space of 37 games, the Lightning are being called for 0.541 more penalties per game more than their opponents (0.688 penalties more at home, 0.429 penalties on the road).

As we look at the Lightning and their PPOP, what a difference a year makes. Remember that last year, the Bolts ended the year with 30 more PPOP than their opposition, and was the 13th least penalized team in the league. This year paints a different picture. At the end of December, the Lightning trail their collective opponents by 22 PPOP (0.595 PPOP/Gm). Significant already in this season are a couple of games.

In the games at home against the Panthers on 17th October and 26th November, the Lightning gave the Panthers 6 and 4, respectively, more PPOP than they had, dropping their PPOP Differential significantly each time:

Games in bold text are home games, and again negative numbers in the "Differential" and "Total" columns are in the opposition's favor, positive numbers are in the Lightning's favor.

Now, please recall the mention at the top of this article the total penalties taken by each team in the league. Because the Lightning have been playing the bulk of their games against teams with fewer penalties against them (only 10 of their 37 games have been against teams more heavily penalized than the Lightning), I believe the penalties against the Lightning are normal. As the Bolts continue their schedule it will be interesting to see if that hypothesis holds true. If it does, it could mean a lot more PPOP for the Lightning in the second half of the season. Indeed, when a trendline is added to the graphical representation of the PPOP for the Lightning, it is trending up, after beginning the year at over a point below 0:

Please note the red line on the graph (Total PPOP Differential) is not shown after 14th October because it drops off the graph due to the scale--that was intentional, as I wanted to show the slight upward slope of the PPOP Differential linear trendline.

Additionally, it is very beneficial the Lightning have only one game remaining against the Panthers. Against the Panthers, the Lightning are terrible at taking penalties, giving them five times more PPOP than any other of their opponents thus far. Likewise, we need to really look forward to the remaining games against the Atlanta Thrashers Winnipeg Jets:

In summary, this season is tremendously different than last year--a fact that should not be a surprise to any of the residents of Bolts Nation. What began as a light-hearted study to show Bolts Nation they don't have to fear the referees is finishing to be a study of taking bad penalties this year that were not taken last year, as well as the schedule being front-loaded with the appearance of disciplined teams.

The future versions of this article will be written at the beginning of each new month and at the end of the regular season.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a penchant for technology--I'm a closet geek, if you will. So it was with great interest I read a recent article on some of the background and implementation strategy behind one of the showcase transformations of this season for Lightning fans: the radio-frequency identification (RFID)-enabled jersey given to season-ticket holders.

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A couple of weeks ago, a co-worker and I were having a fairly intense debate about the fairness (or lack thereof, depending upon the side of debate found most convincing) of the referees in their calling of Tampa Bay Lightning games. I argued that on a game-to-game basis it could be construed the referee give the Bolts the short end of the penalty debate. To do so, however, is to form an opinion based on an extremely small sample size. I promised him a deeper analysis of Lightning games over two seasons and I was sure the larger picture would paint a different picture.

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When Jeff Vinik bought the Tampa Bay Lightning all the way back in 2010, he wanted to turn the franchise around for the fans. Since he made his name and fortune as a very successful businessman and investment guru, it shouldn't stretch anyone's imagination to see Vinik wanted simultaneously to make the team profitable as soon as he could.

While his hiring of the hockey operations staff certainly has made the most headlines (it is a professional hockey team, after all), it is his business personnel hirings that have, and will continue to be, the most help improving the fiscal bottom line for this team's business.

Coupled with hockey's national resurgence (lucrative contracts with companies from Versus NBC Sports Network to Tim Horton's coffee and beyond), the pleasant surprise of the Lightning's deep playoff run last year and the fan base resurgence that comes with it has certainly helped the Lightning's business model look prettier now than a couple of years ago.

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In case you missed it, ESPN TSN posted a couple of noteworthy articles about our Tampa Bay Lightning and their prospects in the upcoming season.

First, their "30 teams in 30 days" featured the Bolts this past weekend.  In case you missed it, it was riddled with the cliches of "Steve Yzerman's miraculous turnaround", "one goal away from the SCF", "Steven Stamkos struggled after January", and "What's Vincent Lecavalier's future"--which is de regeur for any article written by anyone about the Lightning.  Right, DTV?

The second article, written by Scott Cullen, deals mainly with the Fantasy Hockey value of the Lightning players, but is still worth reading for his player analysis.

If you're anything like me, you're kinda excited about this whole St Pete Times Forum (SPTF) renovation idea.  What's more, I'm really excited--and intrigued--about the prospect of lightning firing off after every goal for the Lightning (a la the flames in Calgary's barn).

Well, just the other day the gents at Puck Podcast on Facebook posted a YouTube video of  what we can expect from the new feature:  Tesla coils that can shoot lightning 26 feet.  Cool, but you have to see it for yourself.

The venerable and interesting TSN Off-Season Game Plan section of their website has finally gotten around to the Lightning.  In his plan, Scott Cullen covers the challenges facing our GM/JM this summer, and makes some suggestions as to potential draft picks.  The whole thing is definitely worth reading (link to the article is here), but here are some snippets:

On finding free agent forwards to fill projected holes in the forward ranks:

More reasonably, free agents like Pascal Dupuis, Chad LaRose or Drew Miller might be capable replacements to round out the forward ranks, but how much money the Lightning can afford to spend on free agents will be affected by how much [Steven Stamkos] gets paid.

Mentioning the significant work this summer for the defensive corps:

Tampa Bay's defence is the position most in need of an upgrade. If they could keep [Eric Brewer], who played very well after coming over from St. Louis, that would be a start, and Marc-Andre Bergeron can be an asset on the power play, but the Lightning should remain open to any trades or signings that will upgrade a defence corps that has too many vets in their mid-30s.

Again, how much money is available to bolster this position will depend on the cost associated with Stamkos' new deal, but a puck-mover like Andy Greene could be viable, particularly if Brewer departs.

And to the goaltenders:

If the Lightning don't retain Mike Smith, they'll likely seek an inexpensive backup and, if no great options come in at the right price, could give the role to Cedrick Desjardins.

And finally, to the draft, Cullen, projects the Bolts to select Rocco Grimaldi, Connor Murphy, or Stuart Pearcy.

We are now solidly in the doldrums of hockey fandom--that time of year between the exiting of our team from Cup contention and the opening games of the following season.  The first milestone in the journey through the annual summer desert of hockey is the annual NHL entry draft.  In this article, you’ll find no mention of the top 10 prospects like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Adam Larsson, or Gabriel Landeskog, among others.  You’ll have to look elsewhere for analysis of where the top picks in the draft are projected to fall.  Instead, I’ll summarize some of the players picked by the professional "mock drafters" to fall to the Lightning’s first pick (at #27 overall) and since I’m writing this, the opinions here are mine, formed by the review of the professional pundits.

As a preface to my opinion piece here, please head on over to Bolts Prospects.  Their run-down and analysis of players already in the Lightning system is the best I’ve found. 

During the draft, expect Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman and his scouts to follow the model under which Yzerman apprenticed in Detroit--smart players with puck-moving ability.  Also look to him searching for the "diamonds in the rough"--good players in the later rounds of the draft.  Look no further than Detroit draft picks Jimmy Howard (2003, 2nd round), Johan Franzen (2004, 3rd round), and Henrik Zetterberg (1999, 7th round) for examples of Yzerman’s mentor, Red Wings General Manager Ken Holland’s success in drafting good players with every pick he’s given.  Furthermore, Yzerman and his staff have shown they’re not afraid of calculated risk--2010 #6 overall pick Connolly was rejected by many teams because of his injury-shortened 2009-2010 season and concerns about the health of his hip.  Additionally, because of the lack of depth in the Lightning developmental system across almost all positions, I believe Yzerman will pick the best player available at pick #27, rather than focusing on any specific position.

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One of the hockey sites I frequent often here on SBNation is Behind the Net.  On their corner of the blogosphere, they take very seriously the subject of statistics in hockey.

Today, they posted an analysis of the age-old adage that there is such a thing as too much rest in the playoffs.

The whole post can be found here, so I won't ruin the surprise for you, dear reader.  I was surprised to see the results, though--not exactly what I had expected.

Okay.  Now that I've had about 24 hours to calm down and think about things a bit, I've come to this.

If I was Guy Boucher, I would think about scratching Steven Stamkos for Game 5 against the Penguins.

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For his hit on Ben Lovejoy of the Penguins from Game 3 of the ECQF, Lightning forward Steve Downie's been suspended for one game after his telephone conference with the league headquarters, according to TSN (web and radio).

Arguably the most polarizing of the players in the Lightning roster, Downie's previous history probably had some influence on the league's decision of the one-game suspension.

On the other hand, if Downie got one game, how many will Kunitz get for his flagrant elbow to Simon Gagne?  The jury, as of this post, is still out.

I went to last night's game between the Admirals and the Syracuse Crunch. It was not only Mattias Ritola's first game as an Admirals player, it was Mike Smith's first home game for the Admirals.

First, my impressions of Smitty and Ritola.

Smitty faced 29 shots, saving them all, earning the night's first star in the process. He looked comfortable in net, though he had several instances where the Smitty that we all had grown to dread appeared. He never looked really tested greatly, but was interesting to note is his apparent personal disTance from his teammates. He still wore his Lightning-issued uniform shorts under his leg pads, a detail that didn't escape un-noticed by several fans around me. Additionally, he was the first player off the ice as warm-ups ended, beating the next Admirals player into the locker room by a couple of minutes. Overall, despite getting a shut-out, it appeared to me Smitty doesn't care to be in Norfolk, and didn't make an attempt to talk to any Admirals players at any length.

My impressions of Ritola were different. He was easily the best player on the ice for both teams. He, made several nifty moves entering and carrying the puck low into the OZ. In one play, he avoided a Crunch defenseman's poke check by flipping the puck up in the air, drawing a Crunch high-sticking penalty as a result. He was obviously the target on the PP and was one of the reasons the PP was not overly successful on the night. Nevertheless, I felt Ritola deserved a goal on he night, but instead had to settle for two assists in a very active night for him.

As the the overall game, it was a game in which the Crunch never really looked competitive. The Admirals ran most of the flow of play, with several good defense plays in the Norfolk zone. Most of the aforementioned Crunch shots came on several Admirals penalties, and a couple of instances of 4-on-4.

Scoring opened on a SHG by Admirals captain Chris Durno. As he forechecked aggressively, he intercepted a pass between Crunch defensemen and wrested a shot past the Crunch goalie before he could get set. The second Admirals goal was scored by Stefano Giliati scoring from the "dirty area" in front of the Crunch net. The third goal was set up by Ritola beautifully. Troy Milam passed the puck from the right point to Ritola, positioned low in the right face-off circle. Ritola quickly passed the puck--very nearly a one-time pass it was so quickly made--straight across the crease paint right on to Marc-Antoine Pouliot's stick blade for an easy tap-in.

It really was an enjoyable game from all perspectives. One item of note: on fan mentioned to me that when the Admirals make the playoffs this year, it will be the first time the Lightning will have an AHL affiliate in the playoffs. Interesting.

According to the NHL, Mike Smith has been put on waivers.

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I've long been a fan of alternative history fiction.  My infatuation with the genre began when I read Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South."  His take on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is, in my mind, a better work--but I digress.

On the subject of alternative history fiction, Jonathan Willis from Houses of Hockey writes an interesting article about the trade Jay Feaster didn't make when Nashville was looking to trade Tomas Vokoun.

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