Amazingly, the Devil Rays are still in first place in their division, and while it's not going to last, it's still the farthest into the season that they've gotten before falling into last place.
What's really great is that the Lightning vanquished the Islanders in overtime (yet another series ending overtime goal by Martin St. Louis), and they'll be moving on to the second round, most likely to face either Toronto or Ottawa. Speaking of Martin St. Louis, his story would make for a great Disney movie. Just think about it. He's this little guy, who's been "too little for hockey" his entire life, as a kid, whatever level he played on, everyone would say "just wait till he moves up to the next level when everyone's bigger, he's not going to be able to get by on his speed," and in every age group he proved them wrong. He went on to have a stellar college career at Vermont, only to go undrafted because of his size, gets signed as an undrafted free agent by Calgary, where he spends two years and only scores 4 goals before getting traded to the then basement dwelling Lightning. While in Tampa, he's gone from the guy that nobody expected to succeed to the guy who scored the series winning overtime goal in the first round of the playoffs two years running, who turned into this year's regular season points winner, got offensive player of the month two months in a row (a feat that hasn't been done since Gretzky), is the all around favorite for MVP--basically, he's turned into a bonafide superstar. It's just an all around heart warming story of the sort that Disney loves to invent, except that this one's real.
Posted by kathryn at Abril 17, 2004 02:32 AM | TrackBack