Folks, in case you missed it, the talk of the sports world tonight was the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets playing in a 5OT game. That’s not a typo. There were five overtimes. The game lasted so long that they ended up having to postpone the Hurricans/Bruins game that was scheduled for 8:00pm EST tonight to tomorrow morning at 11:00am EST.
My Tampa Bay Lightning ended up winning the game as Brayden Point scored the winner in the middle of the fifth overtime.
Brayden Point gave me my happiest moment of 2020 tonight by a long shot with that goal. That being said, the game was incredibly stressful. It was 6.5 hours of pure stress for me in all honesty.
For starters, I straight up hate the Columbus Blue Jackets. Admittedly it’s mainly because they swept the Bolts in the first round last year and I still haven’t gotten over that. It’s also because the style of hockey they play is so horrible. They have limited offensive skill so they just absorb, counter, and clog up the neutral zone game in and game out. The Islanders do the same thing and I hate them for it, too. Hockey is supposed to be fun and teams like the Blue Jackets make it not that way.
Many of my friends thought that I’d be having the time of my life but it was miserable. I thought for a while that the simulation broke and I was stranded in purgatory. I wasn’t sure if it would ever end.
So yeah, when there’s a 5OT game where you can count the number of odd man rushes on one hand, it’s stressful as hell. I felt like neither team really ever went for it in the overtime periods. I think this tweet sums up the strategy of both teams.
Either way, Tampa didn’t blink. They played disciplined and within their structure and if they do that then they can beat anyone. Plus, beating Columbus tonight was super sweet. As my dad said when we finally won, “They got the monkey, the zebra, the gorilla, and the entire zoo off of their back with that win.”
1 win down, 15 to go.