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Ducks Drop Lightning in Goalie Duel + The Brett Connolly Conundrum

November 22, 2013, 11:35 PM ET [146 Comments]
Michael Stuart
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Ben Bishop and the Tampa Bay Lightning held off the Anaheim Ducks for 64 minutes and 52 seconds on Friday night before finally allowing a goal in the overtime frame, sealing the deal on a 1-0 loss. In what can only be described as a classic goalie duel, Ben Bishop and his Anaheim counterpart, Jonas Hiller, were absolutely spectacular and worth the price of admission. Despite the fact that the Bolts dropped their fourth straight game, they did manage to grab one point to move their record to 14-8-1.

As good as Hiller was for the Ducks, it’s hard not to imagine what could have been. Tampa was gifted power-play opportunity after power-play opportunity all night long, but couldn’t convert. Hiller made some nice (read: spectacular) saves, but competitive teams find a way to cash in when the chips are down. The fact that the Lightning were unable to beat Hiller in over 60 minutes of play highlights the fact that the team misses Steven Stamkos. Without his elite goal scoring ability, Tampa is struggling to put the puck in the net.

Credit the Ducks for outplaying the Lightning during long stretches of Friday’s contest. Their hard work paid off when Ryan Getzlaf followed up on his own rebound and popped the puck past Bishop with only eight seconds left in the extra frame. Mired in a losing streak of their own heading into Friday’s contest, the Ducks can be proud of the effort they turned in on their way to victory over the Bolts.

The Lightning are set to return home following what can only be described as a disastrous Western Conference road swing. In four games, the Bolts compiled a record of 0-3-1 and played some of their worst hockey of the year. With a few days off before taking on the New York Rangers at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Monday, the Lightning desperately need to hit the reset button.

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Earlier this afternoon, the Lightning announced that they have sent forward Brett Connolly back to the Syracuse Crunch. In 11 games with the Bolts this season, Connolly compiled one goal and zero assists.

You all remember Brett Connolly. He’s the guy who outplayed most, if not all, of the Lightning roster during the preseason before being (what this blogger defines as) unfairly demoted to the American Hockey League. The team decided that the chemistry shown among Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, and Richard Panik was more important than Connolly’s individual performance. We can debate that decision all day long, but it won’t change the past. The fact is that while the “Top Gun” line was suiting up for the Lightning, Connolly was donning Crunch colors.

Once he was finally called up in time for the Lightning’s game on November 1st, it looked as though Connolly was going to get a real shot with the big club. While it might be easy to look at his stat line and say that he didn’t make the most of that opportunity, the full story is much more complex. Simply put, the situation in which Connolly found himself was far from fair. Tasked with playing out of position against top competition shift after shift, Connolly never found his groove with the Lightning.

A natural winger, Connolly found himself either centering a line with Martin St. Louis or plodding along on the wing of a rarely-used fourth line. Unlike the other aforementioned young players, Connolly wasn’t afforded the opportunity to find success; where other players were granted leeway, Connolly was not. It is my opinion that said statement, above all else, sums up the young forward’s time with the Lightning organization this season.

With all that in mind, it’s worth debating whether Brett Connolly’s time with the Lightning might come to an end before he hits his full potential. This blogger doesn’t have any inside information, but he can put two and two together. Beat out by Palat, Panik, and Alex Killorn for a roster spot on the wing, Connolly now finds himself quite a ways down the Lightning’s depth chart. When you consider the fact that the team also has Jonathan Drouin and Nikita Kucherov ready for NHL duty perhaps as soon as next season, the situation becomes even more convoluted.

Is there a long-term fit for Brett Connolly with the Tampa Bay Lightning? Anyone who has read my work here knows that there is nobody who would like the answer to be 'yes' more than yours truly. However, at the moment, I don't know what to say. I'm a massive supporter of the work both Steve Yzerman and Jon Cooper have done with this team, but this is one file I would have handled differently.

As always, thanks for reading.

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