Tampa Bay Lightning-Carolina Hurricanes: Do Not Adjust Your Television

I'd like to give you my analysis of the Tampa Bay Lightning-Carolina Hurricanes showdown tonight, but I can't. I can tell you that the Lightning lost to the Hurricanes in a shootout by the score of 2-1 (2-0 shootout) .

I can tell you that Ryan Malone scored for the Lightning.

I can tell you that Mike Smith made 27 saves in this game.

Other than that, I cannot tell you much.

Inexplicably, a road game was not televised locally in Tampa Bay. I just don't understand that. I mean, I understand not televising home games because you want people to get off the couch and head to the rink.

But why wouldn't you televise a road game? Currently showing on the network the Lightning built the SunSports network (formerly Sunshine Network)—saltwater fishing.

Really, SunSports?

You can split 150 games for the Rays between Sun Sports and Fox Sports Florida, but you cannot televise 41 road games for the Lightning?

After searching for a free stream on the internet for the game, I finally broke down and bought NHL GameCenter Live, but to my dismay when I clicked the Lightning-Hurricanes feed, I received NO FEED AVAILABLE.

So I was forced to listen to the radio broadcast of the game on 620WDAE. Dave Mishkin is a terrific announcer who paints a great picture of the game with his exciting play-by-play but it's simply not the same as watching it.

It sounded like a thrilling game with the two teams trading a number of chances, but both goalies made some unbelievable saves throughout.

After 65 minutes of play, they had to go to a shootout to decide the winner. Shootouts were an area where the Lightning struggled last season (3-10 in shootouts in '08-'09) and it carried over to the start of this season.

Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu scored for Carolina while Cam Ward made stops on Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier.

Tampa Bay heads home for a quick three game home stand, beginning with its home opener against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.

Update: Apparently, the blame isn't just on Sun Sports, you can blame Versus. Apparently Versus played the exclusivity card for the Flyers-Caps game forcing any other NHL game starting at 7-10pm to be blacked out