You know things are bad when the team that rides the short bus to the game (alright, that's an unnecessary cheap shot) manages to steal a point from you. TB-5 PIT-4 (SO) John Grahame stopped 24 of 27 before beating M.A. Fleury in the shootout 2-0 on successful attempts by Richards and Prospal. Congratulations to Darren Reid on his first NHL point, a secondary assist on the first of Dan Boyle's two goals. Ryan Craig later got a helper on a Dimitry Afanasenkov marker. Craig led the rookies in ice time with 18:30 but did not manage a shot on goal. He was +1. Paul Ranger was +2 in 17:40 with 1 hit. Nick Tarnasky was even with 1 shot in 5:37. Darren Reid was +1 in 5:21 with 1 shot and 1 hit. Norm Milley was a scratch and Evgeny Artyukhin served the first game of his two game suspension for El Kabonging a Senator with his own helmet. Game sheet from [url=http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20052006/GS020918.HTM]NHL.com.[/url]

As the SM-liiga regular season continues to wind down, Karri Ramo tried to make a case for playing time in the playoffs as he shut out last place KalPa 4-0 today. The young netminder made 32 saves to improve his record to 9-7-3 this season. Ramo is currently 5th in the league with a .933 save percentage and 6th in GAA with a 2.03 GAA. There are now four games remaining for HPK in the regular season.

Fredrik Norrena and Linkopings fell 2-0 today to #1 seeded HV71 in the regular season finale for both teams. Norrena stopped 25 of 27 shots faced in the loss. His final record was 19-11-5 this season with a .914 save percentage (7th Elitserien), a 2.16 GAA (T-4th Elitserien) and 4 shutouts (T-4th Elitserien). [b]Final Elitserien Statistics for All Lightning Properties[/b] D Andreas Holmqvist, 46 GP, 6-16-22, 64 PIM, (+8) LW Jimmie Olvestad, 50GP, 10-9-19, 90 PIM, (-2) RW Shane Willis, 6 GP, 0-1-1, 4 PIM, (-1) G Fredrik Norrena, 19-11-5, 2.16 GAA, 4 SO, .914 SV%

Further complicating the Springfield Falcons situation on a day that saw Nick Tarnasky and Darren Reid recalled to Tampa, [url=http://www.echl.com/cgi-bin/mpublic.cgi?action=show_news&cat=1&id=7197]they sent left wing Dennis Packard down to Johnstown.[/url]