Latest blog entries from Tampa Bay teams across every league
There is a whole mess of injury news this afternoon: Today’s lineup is similar to yesterday’s, minus Sosa and Heineman, and Varsho is DH today. He was having some better at bats yesterday. Hopefully that will continue. Today’s Lineups BLUE JAYS RAYS Yohendrick Pinango – LF Chandler Simpson – LF Kazuma Okamoto – 3B Junior […]
As has been speculated since his acquisition, and propitiated by the season ending hip surgery required by Ryan Pepiot, the Rays have formally started the transition of Griffin Jax to a starting role, and in doing so Jax has reintroduced his cutter. It’s already helping him handle left-handed hitters more effectively, and should help the […]
This was the 3rd week of full minor league play (stats are entering play on May, 3rd). According to FanGraphs (which factors in age and proximity to the big leagues), 19-year old Cooper Flemming has taken over the top hitter spot in the Rays system. Flemming was the Rays 2nd round pick in 2025 and […]
The Tampa Bay Lightning are a meme.
Alex Newhook notched the go-ahead goal with 8:53 remaining in the third period, and the Montreal Canadiens eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning with a 2-1 victory in Game 7 at Benchmark International Arena. Captain Nick Suzuki also scored for the upstart Canadiens, and goaltender Jakub Dobes stopped 28 shots. Dominic James lit the lamp for the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made seven saves. Montreal will face the Buffalo Sabres starting on Wednesday. Cale Makar scor...
It’s now been roughly three hours since the final horn of the 2025-26 Tampa Bay Lightning season sounded. To this very moment, we’re not exactly sure how the Lightning lost this game. Yes, we grasp the concept that they scored fewer goals than the Canadiens. Still, it was such a well-played game, especially defensively, that we’re still kind of waiting for them to somehow find the equalizer. The Lightning limited the Montreal Canadiens to nine shots on goal. There was a stretch of roughly...
The final game of the opening round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs was concluded tonight as the Montreal Canadiens held on for a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, eliminating the Lightning as the eighth and final team gone from the first round. Of course, that means we'll have exit interviews on The Hockey Show as five more people join Ethan (Ottawa), Harv (Los Angeles), and Billy (Pittsburgh) back on the mainland after spending two weeks or less on Survivor: NHL Playoffs island! The rem...
Montreal is 2-1 when this woman sings O, Canada, so I’m actually starting to like her a bit. First period Lane Hutson deals with an early shift from Nikita Kucherov’s line by stripping the puck and turning it the other way. Montreal’s first chance comes from the Kirby Dach line after two Lightning defenders went after Josh Anderson in the end wall. Darren Raddysh was standing in the crease trying to check Nick Suzuki at the side of the net, and a shot from Mike Matheson...
Good teams win close games. The Rays are proving so far this season that they truly are a good team. Today was another example. Not because every win has to be clean, or because the offense is turning games into batting practice. No, this one was proof in a much more Rays’ way. Tampa Bay […]
2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs – Eastern Conference QFs Game 7: Montreal Canadiens (A3) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (A2) Series tied 3-3 Start time: **6:00 PM EDT / 3:00 PM PDT** In Canada: CBC, Sportsnet (English), TVA Sports (French) In the United States: TNT, truTV In the Lightning region: The Spot Streaming: Sportsnet+ Noah Dobson will be a game-time decision for today’s Game 7, having ramped up his on-ice work in recent days to the point he’s been taking shots. He won’t be ...
The Buffalo Sabres continue to be the great Cinderella Story of the 2025-26 season. After making the playoffs for the first time in 15 years, their first-round triumph over the Boston Bruins in six games continued the good vibes. But we're getting troubling news on the injury front as the Sabres get set for their second-round series this coming week against the winner of the Montréal Canadiens-Tampa Bay Lightning Game 7 on Sunday night. Head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters that we ...
Go Rays!
A miserable road trip is about to come to an end. The San Francisco Giants are in Florida taking on the Tampa Bay Rays for some breakfast baseball (for us watching from the west coast, that is … it’s the less appealing and less alliterative lunch baseball where the game is), and they’re hoping to […]
It's Game 7 for the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday night, and both teams are hoping to have all hands on deck, if at all possible. For the Habs, top-pairing defenseman Noah Dobson hasn't played in the entire first-round series, recovering from an injury to his thumb suffered while blocking a shot on April 11th. But a significant development on Sunday morning as Dobson took warmup with the team, and head coach Martin St. Louis says he is "confident" that the blueline...
Game Seven: Montreal Canadiens (3-3) at Tampa Bay Lightning (3-3) Time: 6:00 PM EST Location: Benchmark International Arena, Tampa, FL (Lightning are 4-1 in Game 7 Home Games) TV/Stream/Radio: The Spot, TNT, truTV, HBOMax, ESPN+, 102.5 FM, Lightning App Odds: Lightning Know the Opponents: Habs Eye on the Prize There is a story, perhaps anecdotal, that occasionally circulates around the internets about George Lucas’ directorial style while shooting the original Sta...
Logan Stankoven scored twice to extend his postseason goal streak to five games in the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 victory over Philadelphia Flyers in Game 1 at Lenovo Center on Saturday. Frederik Andersen made 19 saves to post his second shutout of the playoffs, and Jackson Blake also tallied for the Hurricanes, who are unbeaten. Sean Couturier matched Stankoven with a game-high five shots, and Dan Vladar stopped 20 shots for the Flyers. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING vs MONTREAL CANADIENS ...
2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs – Eastern Conference QFs Game 7: Montreal Canadiens (A3) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (A2) Series tied 3-3 Start time: **6:00 PM EDT / 3:00 PM PDT** In Canada: CBC, Sportsnet (English), TVA Sports (French) In the United States: TNT, truTV In the Lightning region: The Spot Streaming: Sportsnet+ The official stats say that the Tampa Bay Lightning had a 38-26 advantage in scoring chances at five-on-five and a 22-7 edge in high-danger chances in Game 6, but ...
Go Rays!
The San Francisco Giants are set to face the Tampa Bay Rays this afternoon, and the hope is that they can start to turn around a miserable road trip, though they’re fast running out of time. San Francisco has lost the first four games of the six-game swing, and that underscores how bad it’s been: […]
Are you ready? We said, Arrrrrrrreeeeeee you reeeeeeaddddddddyyyyyy? Game 7 is here! Well, almost here. We still have to wait 24 hours for the Lightning and Canadiens to engage in their winner-take-all battle. A few years ago, the Lightning engaged in a Game 7 against the New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference Finals. Prior to that game we ranked their previous Game 7s based on a completely arbitrary, poorly-thought-out system. Really, it is what we do best. Since the publ...
It may have taken some time to get his sea legs back, but Shane McClanahan pitched with a level of conviction we haven’t seen since before the injuries. As a result, he turned in his best outing of the season and set the table for the Rays second shutout in their last three games. His […]
Make absolutely no mistakes, Andrei Vasilevskiy was the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth star tonight. We’ll give Gage Goncalves the fifth star for his overtime, game-winning goal, but without the absolute stellar play of the Lightning netminder, this series is over. Vasilevskiy picked up his first shutout of the playoffs as he stopped 30 shots, including a brilliant two-save sequence on Ivan Demidov in the second period. He needed to make every last one of those stops as the Lightning ...
First period Two early icings by the Lightning and they’re already diving trying to draw a call on the race to the puck. I expect that to be a theme of this game. A very nice cycling shift for the usual top line of Juraj Slafkovskš, Nick Suzuki, and Cole Caufield to create a scoring chance. Darren Raddysh wins up a slapshot that hits Jakub Dobeš in the mask, but it falls right into his pads where he can freeze it. Dobeš gives the puck away behind the net, but Yanni Gourde...
Go Rays!
The San Francisco Giants head to Florida today to begin a three-game road series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Taking the mound for the Giants will be left-hander Robbie Ray, who enters today’s game with a 2.70 ERA, 4.23 FIP, with 35 strikeouts to 14 walks in 33.1 innings pitched. His last start was in […]