First game back and Perrin too

As bad as the Lightning looked against the Thrashers, I'm willing to give them a pass because of the ridiculous scheduling coupled with the rules of the CBA that forced Tampa Bay to play a game after literally not skating for almost three days.

Consider, the team was, by rule, not allowed to skate Sunday or Monday. It wasn't even allowed to fly to Atlanta on Monday because it was Christmas. So the team flew Tuesday morning, checked into a hotel (has no morning skate) and then played a game against a team resting at home and which skated that morning. Unfair.

Anyway, let me talk a sec about Eric Perrin. Talk about a guy with his feet on the ground. Since he is making $450,000 this season, about double what he made last season in Switzerland and more than he ever has as a pro, I asked him if his kids (Alyssa, 5; stepson Austin, 11; and Alexandre, 6 weeks) would reap the Christmas rewards. Perrin laughed and said, "You know, you can't spoil them too much.''

No surprise then he said this about the success he is having as he is (for the most part) playing on a line with Vinny 4 and Marty (his childhood friend). "Sure it's a good time because I'm here in the NHL doing what I want to do, doing what I've worked hard to do in my career. But I also have to stay focused and do what got me here and what it takes to stay here. It's not like I'm at home and saying, 'Yay, yay, yay.' I'm still a ball of nerves. I've got to stay focused on every shift. You can't take one shift off and that's what I've been doing, going shift by shift, limiting my mistakes and trying to be creative out there.''

Nice.

   

realignment

Don't be fooled by the breathless reports out of Canada that the NHL is about to realign and change the way it conducts the playoffs. According to some people who should know, things are a lot farther away from happening than it would appear. That said, it certainly is fun to think about what a realigned NHL would look like.

The Thrashers in the West? Sounds too strange. Can you imagine the road trips? I think that would be addressed again if the Penguins move west.

I particularly liked the proposed playoff format with the top two teams in each division being guaranteed the top four seeds with the rest of the eight-team field in each conference rounded out by points regardless of where a team stands in its division.

The proposed format also would really change the dynamic of Tampa Bay's season with many more games against teams from the Northeast.

So, good plan? Bad? Doesn't matter?

Torts takes the blame

So Torts came out and said he should take some blame for the unremarkable season. Guess he wanted to jump on the bandwagon, what with his players being finger-pointed. But it does raise a good point. How do you measure the job of a coach?

Generally, my tipping point is when you can see that the players have stopped playing hard. That is when you believe the coach has lost his influence. But you don't see that with the Lightning. And the staff certainly has a track record given the Cup season and three straight years in the playoffs.

So how do we evaluate Tortorella? He seems to have made peace with Vinny 4. The players, for the most part, stick with the team concept (other than when they get nervous about holding a lead). I think he has struck the right tone with the media this year in not calling players out. And I believe he has tried to make the team is rested, and he read the players correctly the other day when he turned practice into a pickup game.

For me, I still think he has the ears of the team, and no coach is more prepared. Yes? No? And what about Jay Feaster coming out strongly in support of his coach and staff? Does that box him into a corner, or is he smart to let players know they are on the bubble?    

A win is a win

So, the ending was probably not what the Lightning was looking for, but the game was confirmation, for me, anyway, again that this team is better than it is showing. Effort is there. Ability and skill is there. I think when it gets to crunch time they just tighten up a bit, probably because the season has been so uneven.

Perhaps having survived the game with a couple of good defensive plays at the end and some pretty good goaltending when it counted from Denis, they will draw some confidence. Tough game coming up, though, against the Senators. What a huge psychological hump that would be to get a win in Ottawa. At this point, though, a solid effort would be a pretty god payoff.

Remember, no roster moves through the 27th because of the holiday roster freeze.

Feds sits

So it got pretty interesting for a while late Saturday night after Ruslan Fedotenko was a surprise scratch and everybody thought they were putting two and two together and had him traded. Seeing as the roster freeze for the holidays begins Tuesday, the thought was not totally out of bounds. And, who really knows? It still could happen. But after talking to several people who should know, there were no concrete indications Feds was held out of the game because of an impending trade.

He hasn't played well recently, had only 20 combined minutes his previous two games and has just two goals in his past 18 games. And perhaps his left hip is bothering him more than is known. He did admit he had not been able to strengthen it as he liked. There also would be a lot of hurdles to cross when it comes to trading Feds. GM Jay Feaster always will have a soft spot for him because of the hoopla surrounding the trade that brought him in and that Feds was such a big part of the Cup season. And don't forget he had 26 goals last season. I know, though, all bets are off when the team is going so badly.

Okay, so Feaster said the coach is not the problem and he is not looking to make a change there. He has said Lecavalier, Richards, St. Louis are not going anywhere. He likely won't trade off the blue line because that's where the team needs most improvement. So where does he find a deal?

Is it with Prospal, who would clear about $2-million of cap space? Or does he tinker around the edges with guys like Affy and Karlsson, or does he package them with Prospal in some way?

Maybe you guys can give him, and me, some hints.    

Latendresse rising

Boy it made me feel good to hear from Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau this morning that Guillaume Latendresse is doing so well. You remember Latendresse, right? He's the guy that might have ended Rob DiMaio's career in the preseason with a borderline hit that caused a concussion.

Latendresse, a 19-year-old rookie, is on the first line with Saku Koivu and Michael Ryder and has seven goals. "He still lacks experience, but you can see he has talent,'' Carbonneau said. "He can make some plays.''

Nice, isn't it, that Latendresse's career is going along so well while DiMaio sits home in Toronto hoping to play again, though that is certainly a long shot.

Trade talk

Jay Feaster came out today and said he might see no other way to shake the team out of its funk than to make a trade. He did not talk about specific moves but it is not tough to figure out who might be available: Vinny Prospal, Dmitry Afanasenkov and Andreas Karlsson.

None of the big boys will be traded. Ruslan Fedotenko is an iffy case. Feaster really likes him but if it is a move that can't be refused it will be interesting to see what he does.

It was interesting Rick Dudley and Dale Tallon were at Tampa Bay's game against the Maple Leafs. Doesn't necessarily mean anything as Dudley travels extensively and Tallon's parents apparently live in the Toronto area. But the Blackhawks are loaded with defensemen and will have to make some decisions when Adrian Aucoin gets back from injury.

Anyway, the conventional wisdom is the team needs defensive help as well as a grind-it-out kind of grit player. But here's a thought, though there is no indication this is on the table.

If the Lightning had two lines working consistently that might mitigate some of the problems it is having on defense. Prospal and Ruslan Fedotenko were supposed to pick up the slack left by Fredik Modin. That hasn't happened. So I was wondering what your thoughts were about what is more pressing, getting defensive help or a second-line forward that can play with Brad. That, by the way, would allow St. Louis to stay on Vinny 4's line?

   

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Instigator

I've been thinking a bit about the instigator rule. I'm going to be writing about it as part of a larger story about physical play in the league, and Torts addressed it yesterday.

Torts has a good point about how when there is trouble on the ice that needs to be addressed, it is the player who comes to the rescue who is invariably singled out for extra punishment (two minutes for instigating, five for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct). I guess I'm of the opinion that if something needs to be done, you do it and then deal with the consequences. better that than Marty St. Louis getting run over all game.

On the other hand, as Andre Roy said, sometimes guys just feel like jumping you and then there would be no recourse from the officials, and you don't want to get back to the bad old days of mass brawls and bench-clearing incidents, though I have to say, as long as no one gets hurt, that can be fun to watch occasionally.

I think, ultimately, I don't like the rule. I think you can make penalties for players jumping into a fight or coming off the bench so harsh that incidents don't escalate beyond a one-on-one confrontation. And there is something to be said for players being able to police themselves on the ice. Take the hit Ryan Craig took the other day from Vitaly Vishnevski. Clearly late, clearly meant to intimidate and send a message. The Lightning, a very disciplined team (even Andre Roy said he thought this through), did not retaliate in great part because of the rules against it. Vishnevski got a penalty but didn't you feel as if he got away with something?

Silent Dave

Turns out Dave Andreychuk would have liked to speak at his ceremonies Tuesday night at the St. Pete Times Forum, but the Lightning asked him not to. Had to do with the fact that, by NHL rule, teams have 30 minutes after the end of warmups to get games started. With the extensive video package and gift ceremony, they were bumping up to the limit even though the time the Lightning had in the locker room after warmups was cut from the usual 20 minutes to nine to get things going. Andreychuk also had several comments previously recorded and replayed on the scoreboard, so it was not as if he was totally silent.

Andreychuk said he understood the situation but wished he could have thanked the organization and especially the fans for the "respect'' he has been shown. It is difficult to overstate the genuine emotion he feels for the organization and fans. I'll write a bit more about this in Friday's paper.

Give Dave a hand

It was very cool listening to Dave Andreychuk talk about his retirement and how tough it was for him to leave the game. He definitely was a unique presence in the Lightning locker room.

Two moments stand out for me, both during the Stanley Cup season, if I recall correctly. One was on Long Island after a very bad loss to the Islanders. I walked into the locker room at Nassau Coliseum and every player was sitting at their lockers, even Nikolai Khabibulin, who did not even play that night. I asked Andreychuk if I had walked in on a meeting and he said, "No. We're here for you. Ask anybody any question you want. We are going to be accountable.'' First of all, can you imagine that happening in any other sport? And how about the strength of personality Andreychuk must have had to carry that off.

The other moment was in Montreal. The team had a night off before a practice day and went out and partied hard during a rookie dinner. Everyone was dragging the next day. But there was Andreychuk, leading the sprints on the ice, working harder than anyone else. It was a lesson he told me later. He wanted the players to know it was okay to play, as long as things were back to business on the ice.

Andreychuk was a terrific influence and player for the Lightning. His night is well deserved.

   

It's all about goaltending

If the past three games have taught us anything, it is the game comes down to one thing, goaltending. We can moan and whine all we want about power plays, penalty kills, wall play, whatever. But if you don't have someone giving you good work between the pipes, none of it matters.

The Lightning has lost three games in a row (granted, one was in a shootout) because of goaltending. Olaf Kolzig stands on his head and the Capitals win. Tim Thomas is amazing and the Bruins' goalie outlasts a similar effort by Marc Denis. And Ray Emery is good but not spectacular for the Senators, but Johan Holmqvist is bad for the Lighnting and Tampa Bay loses again.

Why do we write so much about goaltending? Because that, ultimately, is where games are won and lost.

Anyone still want to trade Marc Denis?

Call it a re-Roy

So, the Lightning claimed Andre Roy off re-entry waivers Saturday and he will be joining the team when it practices Monday at the St. Pete Times Forum. This will be an interesting situation. Roy was not playing much in Pittsburgh before he was sent to the minors, so we'll see how he does in the Lightning lineup. Expect him to play on the fourth line and expect him, at least in the short term, to bring some energy.

What will be interesting to see is how he handles his emotions and his role. It is great he throws body checks but he had a tendency to go a little haywire now and then and also take himself out of the team system which drove Torts crazy. And speaking of the coach, the two had a tumultuous relationship the last time around. Both have said all is forgiven, and Roy has said if he was back in Tampa he would gladly take anything Torts throws at him. We'll see.

For now, though, I think it is a worthy try.