Many Lightning fans stayed up late Monday night to watch their team including your friends at LightningShout. The Oilers had yet to win a game and the Lightning had been doing pretty well. The mood on social media was full of swagger in the early goings of the game. By the closing minutes of the third period with the Lightning trailing by a goal, the mood had drastically changed. Bolts fans referred to the game as a nightmare and the worst loss of the season. Considering the season is only two weeks old, this may be true, but the roller coaster of emotions are hard to keep up with. The sky is not falling and there’s a few important things we need to remind ourselves of.
The Lightning have lost two top six forwards in Ryan Callahan and Alex Killorn. They also lost Victor Hedman and Radko Gudas. All of these injuries came in a matter of a few days which isn’t great by any means. It’s easy to get frustrated when the injury bug strikes your team. It’s easy to overreact in light of last season’s loss of Steven Stamkos and later goalie Ben Bishop.
The good news is that this is happening in October and not in April or May. June if we’re incredibly fortunate. It’s a long season so there is definitely time to rest and rebound.That brings up another point: it IS a long season. No team is going to win all 82 games on their schedule. Any NHL team is capable of winning on any given night. Sure, there’s disparity in the standings but even the bottom dwellers manage a win from time to time.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this is not a unique situation just for the Lightning. Every team will face injuries and adversity. For example, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal suffered a broken leg in the preseason. The New York Rangers have lost both Dan Boyle and Dan Girardi recently. Former Bolt and current Flyer Vincent Lecavalier is currently out with a lower body injury.
In a fast paced and hard hitting game like hockey, injuries are an inevitability. Conditions are rarely optimal. It’s what teams do when those losses occur that determines their path for the rest of the year. Teams with talented depth players and leadership are better equipped to weather the storm. Those are the teams that come out of that adversity as playoff teams and become champions.
The Lightning are blessed with an unprecedented abundance of talent in their system. This is the squad that handled the loss of Steven Stamkos for half the season. Thanks to the careful offseason retooling this is a much improved team that should be able to handle whatever comes their way. While last night’s loss may be “the worst of the season”, it’s important to remember that there is still so much hockey to be played. In the immortal words of Ilya Bryzgalov “It’s only game. Why you heff to be mad?” October is not the time to panic and we need to keep that in perspective.
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