from Scott Stinson of the National Post,

Two months into these playoffs, the narrative well has just about run dry.

The Triplets are great, Duncan Keith is an alien put on this Earth to play 30 minutes a night without showing fatigue, and (INSERT PLAYER HERE) is frustrated by his lack of scoring but knows he just needs to keep working hard and things will turn and it’s all about whether the team wins anyway. Even the Ben Bishop drama is stuck on repeat. Asked on Wednesday morning whether the goalie would play, Lightning coach Jon Cooper replied: “I think we’re in the same holding pattern as we were 48 hours ago.”

And so, a lot is made about stuff that is happening on the fringes. Wednesday’s big news, such as it is, was that defenceman Kimmo Timonen was drawing into the Chicago lineup for Game 4. There’s some human interest there in that Timonen is a 40-year-old warhorse who overcame a blood clot scare this season, but he’s also replacing Kyle Cumiskey, who played all of seven minutes and 38 seconds in Game 3. (See previous note about Duncan Keith being an alien.) When Timonen last played, on May 25 against Anaheim, he logged eight minutes and six seconds. He’s had games where he has played five minutes. He’s not in the lineup to provide a spark as much as he’s there to try to not get burned as spectacularly as Cumiskey was on Cedric Paquette’s game-winning goal on Monday night.

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