Happy Boxing Day!

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The Lightning gave their fans an early Christmas gift with a win over the Islanders on the 21st. However, they joy that

this brought was

short lived as they lost the next game on the 23rd against the Flyers. This loss at home means that the Lightning

has a better record this month at away games than they do on home ice (1-3-0 at home, 2-5-1 on the road)! Of the Lightning’s 13 wins this year, just over half have been on home ice (7). And of those seven home ice wins, 4 were in October, 2 were in November, and the sole win this month came on the 5th when the Lightning played the Islanders. So much for the home ice advantage! The Lightning need all the support that they can muster at home. An arena that is jammed full of Lightning fans can help give the team a psychological boost in these upcoming games and can help intimidate the opponent! With some intra conference and division games coming up through the end of the month it would be an excellent aid to

the Lightning to have the St Pete Times Forum more than 75% full as it has been recently!

The next game that the Lightning will play will be at home against the Thrashers, who are 18-14-4, on the 26th. This will be the third meeting this season between the Lightning and their divisional rival the Thrashers. Currently the Thrashers are in second place in the south east division and sixth place in the conference. The Lightning are in eleventh place, tied there with the Islanders. A win on the 26th would set the stage for the Lightning to jump start a season and help them back to having the same momentum that they had earlier in the season!

The Lightning broke a three game streak that saw them not scoring any points on their home ice on the 23rd against the Flyers. Not only did the Lightning finally start scoring again on home ice, but the game was also tied heading into the third. Unfortunately, the Flyers scored 3 goals in the last period. Though this was a loss for the Lightning, there are some bright points to this. As previously stated they scored on home ice! Second both of there goals were not power play goals, they were not dependent on having the Flyers down a player (one of the Flyers goals in the first period was a PPG). These are good signs and hopefully the team is recovering from the nose dive it seemed to have taken this fall.

There are two Lightning players, Jeff Halpern and Todd Fedoruk, who have lower body injuries. However, both are still on the line up for the game against the Thrashers.

Coach Tocchet thought that the two days off after the tough loss to the Flyers would give the team the time to recover and regroup before going into the match against the Thrashers. Here’s hoping that the Lightning can re-energize their game by the time that the puck drops on the 26th in order to give their fans a late Christmas present (or a nice Boxing Day gift for the fans up north)!