The Lightning are well represented at the Olympics with six players on five national teams. The men’s hockey tournament got underway Wednesday in Sochi and continued today with four games on the schedule. Here’s a look at what’s been going down in Russia for the Bolts.
Canada: Martin St. Louis took the ice today in Team Canada’s 3-1 victory against Norway. Marty ended up with 10:47 in ice time, one shot on goal, and a +1 rating. A decent amount of playing time considering he was in the line up as basically a 13th forward. He saw a decent amount of time in a rotation with Jamie Benn, Patrice Bergeron, and John Tavares. The grouping was impressive enough that coach Mike Babcock called his best line. The Canadians will meet Austria on Friday.
Quite a few members of the mens’ team took in the match up between Canada and USA’s womens’ teams on Wednesday. Our captain is in the middle there.
Czech Republic: The Czech’s first game on Wednesday resulted in a 4-2 loss to Sweden. Ondrej Palat played 13:30 with one shot on goal. He worked predominantly on a line with Jakub Voracek and David Krejci. Radko Gudas was scratched for the game, some new on Twitter pointed to illness as the reason for his absence. The Czechs will meet Lativa on Friday for their next match.
Finland: Defenseman Sami Salo is Tampa’s lone representative on Team Finland. The Finns got off to a slow start in their first game against Austria but ended up with the 8-4 victory. Salo is working in a pairing with Olli Maatta of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He finished the game with 3 shots on goal and 15:57 in ice time. Finland will meet Norway tomorrow.
Lativa: Latvia suffered a 1-0 loss in their opening game against Switzerland. Goalie Kristers Gudlevskis did not play and no word if he’ll start tomorrow against the Czechs.
Slovakia: Richard Panik and the Slovaks were decimated 7-1 by Team USA in their first game of the tournament. Panik saw time on a line with Marcel Hossa and and Tomas Marcinko. He registered 12:42 in ice time with one shot on goal and a -1 rating. Their next game is Saturday against Slovenia.
USA: Ok, so there’s no Lightning players on this team. There were a ton of tweets with people saying “Bishop would have stopped that” when Slovakia scored their lone goal.
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