If you’re reading this, thanks for pulling up a chair one more time before we all pop in a Lightning Lozenge and take a collective breather.
I think it’s fair to say we’re all disappointed with the way things turned out on the ice. This team had the goods. And we saw stretches throughout the season that made fans feel like maybe, just for a moment, the Lightning were staring themselves down in the mirror of the Stanley Cup once again.
That’s not how things played out.
Oliver Bjorkstrand went down. Brandon Hagel’s ice time and stat sheet brought an unfortunate irony to “Hagel’s Bagels.” And the Panthers—for all of their antipathy—were the better team. As Jon Cooper alluded to at the end of Game 5, they got some guys over there. “Brad Marchand on the third line” type of guys. Can they keep the Cup in Florida for a sixth straight year? We’ll see. One thing’s for sure: Tampa Bay does not have a good time losing to the team down south.
But if you’ve come expecting heavy handed criticism of the 2024-25 Bolts, you won’t find much of it here. It just feels a little off to lay down the editorial hammer on players who lay it on the line as I mustard up a hot dog in Row W. If you want that sort of thing, though, you’ll have no problem finding it elsewhere.
That being said, we have some thoughts from five games—one last round of sights and sounds. The obscure observations regarding everything Bolts Nation, both on and off the ice. We’ll start on a light note.
“Look at how short that one guy is.”
Overheard at Amalie Arena during the national anthem, in regard to the Thunder Kid standing next to Victor Hedman in the opening lineups. Sometimes sports deliver moments so pure that they exceed competition. And for just a moment, one lucky kid was a real-life professional hockey player in the eyes of at least one Lightning fan. Beautiful stuff.
The pregame, in-bowl experience remains elite
I love playoff hype content—complete sucker for it. I’m the guy who refrains from watching the videos on social media so I can buy my ticket to the theatrical experience. And for its penultimate reveal for Round 1, both of this year’s playoff pieces induced cinematic levels of adrenaline. The script for Paul Kennedy’s “The Formula” segment—written by the Emmy decorated Mikey O’Halloran—elevated the crowd to a volume I hadn’t heard in some time. I legitimately couldn’t decide who I wanted to run through a wall for more: Titus O’Neil or Paul Kennedy. Which is not something I ever thought I’d ask myself in this lifetime.
