Tampa Bay Lightning have given us plenty of reasons to be cheerful over the past few weeks so it's hard to feel too down about its most recent shootout loss.
This time they went down 2-1 to Montreal to snap a three-game winning streak but at least the final eight possible points of 2008 have yielded seven - not bad given what went before it.
Lightning interim coach, Rick Tocchet, admitted it was hard to be too down on his players, but said it would be nice to win a shootout for a change.
"We grabbed a point, and it was really a great hockey game," said Tocchet. "Shootouts are really tough, because they are confidence-builders if you win them, you can really take off when you win those things. We've been on a little bit of a streak, but we needed the two points, bad, really bad."
Goaltender Mike Smith was solid in net for Tampa Bay all night, stopping 29 shots, but the overall result made it 2-7 to Lightning in shootouts this season (3-10 in overtime).
"I think we still played like we have been, and we did a lot of good things tonight," said Smith, who has allowed 15 shootout goals on 40 attempts this season. "We have to come out of this game with a positive, and that's a top team in this league and we are battling to find our mojo. I think we played a pretty decent hockey game, so we can't get too down."
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