Gary Bettman: You've got an investigation in one more Lightning loss in this series...

I'm not going to say, necessarily, that the Tampa Bay Lightning are throwing the series with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

YET.

I do, however, think that Commissioner Bettman might want to look into all this.

Three major pieces of evidence:

• The Lightning finished with 128 points, a full 19 points (9 1/2 wins) over any other team in the National Hockey League in the regular season.
• The regular season series:  8-2 (Oct. 13), 4-0 (Jan. 8), 5-1 (Feb. 18) -- the February 18 game was in Columbus, all three won by Tampa Bay by a combined margin of 17-3.
• So the postseason comes around, and Columbus wins in Tampa 4-3, then wins 5-1 in Game Two and 3-1 in Game Three.

That, to me, is enough to ask some questions.  Not more than "ask questions", but questions do need to be asked here.