The Puck Stops Here

Last week, I wrote about how the Vancouver Canucks are undefeated when leading at the end of the second period. The flip side to that accomplishment is teams that cannot win games when they are losing at the end of the second period. There are two teams that have no wins under those circumstances. They are the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Washington Capitals. Both of these teams have had games where they cameback to have regulation ties (losses in overtime or shootouts), but neither have wins. The conventional wisdom is that a low scoring team cannot comeback once they are down, but neither of these teams are the lowest scoring in the NHL. Both of these teams have players who figure prominently in the NHL's top scorers. Tampa has Vincent LeCavalier and Washington has Alexander Ovechkin. It can be argued that both of these players benefit offensively from the large number of games they play in the weak Southeast Division, but it hasn't led to any comeback victories. Their weak teams are unable to prevent enough goals or score often enough to succeed in comeback situations. This is one of the reasons that neither of these teams appears likely to make playoffs (or if they do by winning the Southeast Division - are unlikely to have any playoff success).