By Bryon Richmond
As I said on my show last night, since it’s early on in the season, this game last night against the Canadiens wasn’t a must win but definitely needed to win in my opinion because the Canadiens are a rebuilding team. Plus if we would have lost last night, it would be the first time in years that we would be 3 games under .500 to start the season off.
In the game our penalty kills were very impressive as they disrupted shooting lanes, blocked shots and closed down all shooting lanes, so even though the scoreboard shows the Canadiens had a goal it could have been more if it wasn’t for our defense coming through.
What was more impressive was our quick strike mentality. After going down 1-0 late in the 1st period Braydon Colburn scored to tie it up with only seconds left in the period. The scoring continued early in the 2nd on the Bolts only power play of the game as Victor Hedman slid a pass over to Stamkos as he stammered it in the net for his 4th of the year to make the game 2-1. Not even .57 seconds later after the Stamkos goal, Tyler Johnson added an insurance goal to put the Canadiens out of their misery. That was all the scoring the Bolts would need as they won the game 3-1 from a flurry of shots at the end of the game from the Canadiens.
Vasi was dominant in goal as he saved 33-34 shots in route to his 3rd win if the season and 8-0-2 overall against the Canadiens.
