The Lightning win two in a row - the team decided to take abreka from treading water for a day and actually moves forward.

No word on whether they feel like regressing tonight at Phillips Arena versus the Thrashers.

By the way - note to Sean Burke — Simply backing into the goal and sitting down does not help stop breakaways… And Alex Ovechkin? You’re doing a great job sticking the Calder Trophy up Sidney Crosby’s ass…

Watching the game last night I was concerned about Martin Brodeur when he went down during the barrage of shots during the 3rd period. Martin may have looked human in last nights game but he is still one of the greatest goalies that have played… (and if my friend, Jes Golbez, is reading — please insert your anti-Brodeur argument in comments )

At any rate, I was jsut concerned that somehow there might be “foul play” pointed at one Bolt or another because of the injury. Yet the true culprit was the goal post…

“My skate got caught and I twisted it. I heard it twist and I couldn’t get up. All my body weight fell on it. I had to be really hurt to leave the game. We were still in the game at that point.”

Here’s hoping Martin gets well soon.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say “Howdy” to Todd Wright at Tampa Bay Lightning.com. Todd is the team’s official blogger and has a couple of posts worth a gander over there.

Good luck to you and I look forward to reading more of your posts in the near future.

All of you know that I am a big Instigator cartoon fan - I’ve made a couple of posts involving comics in the past from the CBC based cartoon and I just think it’s a great and humorous cartoon unlike other sorry attempts at hockey humor.

At any rate, Charlie Teljeur who is the method behind the Instigator madness, dropped a line to the guys running Save The Instigator the other day and not only did he tip his hat to them - he also sent along a little Instigator fix:

**sigh** All is right in the world again, at least for a moment or so…

Do what Save The Instigator suggests — drop CBC a note telling them you want Instigator back.

Up until June 7th, 2004 the Lightning had failed to put together back-to-back wins… It had been win-loss-win-loss during the Lightning / Flyers Eastern Conference final and during the Stanley Cup Championship versus the Calgary Flames.

That trend has continued even with a years hiatus of the NHL… The Lightning, coming off a back-to-earth loss to the Ottawa Senators last week at the St. Petersburg Times Forum, put up four unanswered goals in the 3rd period to lay waste to the New Jersey Devils in East Rutherford tonight. Dave Andreychuk decided to remind people he is not retired yet and notched two goals as part of the four-goal 3rd period spark.

Brad Richards notched three assists as the Modin - Richards - St. Louis line generated the Bolts first two goals (the first of which came 34 seconds into the game by Martin St. Louis).

It still wasn’t the dominating performance that one would expect form the bolts and Defense still looked questionable. That’s going to be an issue that will continue to dog the Lightning during the season - the question is how long?

Dear god, what a terrible start to the Sun Sports TV’s broadcast tonight.

It’s well known that Sun Sports is at the mercy of others at times on telecasts in other buildings but for the first five minutes of tonight’s broadcast — things were dismal at best. One could not follow the puck with thanks to distance of the camera on the action, the camera could not follow the action or routinely screwed up doing so. There was no clock on screen and the only way you would know the score was from witnessing Martin St. Louis’ goal on the opening shift first hand.

Fortunately this was resolved after five minutes of play but still - what a horrid start.

Unlike other Tampa Bay coaches, John Tortorella is seeing the undisciplined play of the Lightning and pointing out where the demon (trying to avoid the pun) is:

“To me, after I coach the [Ottawa] game and then I looked at the tape, it was a wake-up call for me on how we are just not detail-oriented right now,” he said. “After watching the tape, it is so evident in all parts of our game. Now we’ve seen it, they’ve talked about it, we’ve looked at it … now we have to solve it. There’s no sense in belly-aching about it now, now we just have to solve the problem.”

Meanwhile, tonight’s opponent, the New Jersey Devils, happen to still be over the Salary Cap from what Mike Chen reports.

There’s a report making it’s way all over the news services that says the New Orleans Saints are no more, so to speak. It’s a lame duck franchise that will play the 2006 season in San Antonio, Texas before moving west to Los Angeles for 2007 and beyond.

“It’s not the individuals who show up at the game and buy the tickets. The people are great. It’s the business, or lack of, that’s the primary factor. For whatever reason, the area simply does not have many strong and large businesses.”

That’s sports consultant Marc Ganis talking and speaking a cold reality that is pro sports in the United States. Screw the people who support and are attached to their franchise — it’s all about money in the end.

Tom Benson has made it no secret that he wanted Superdome renovated before Hurricane Katrina came knocking. He threatened to move the team east - to Jackson, Mississippi - but it was rumored that the powers-that-be in the NFL did not like that idea as it would move the team from a weak financial market to an even weaker one.

In the case of moving the team to San Antonio and then Los Angeles - it moves the team to two cities with populations with larger disposable incomes… Just what the NFL wants - fans that can spend extra.

Martin St. Louis gets interviewed in a casual interview in the St. Petersburg Times today. Though he talks about liking such things as CSI: Miami and Desperate Housewives, he does come off as only a casual fan.

Marty’s also nursing a thigh bruise sustained on Friday Night He was held out of practice Saturday.

Defenseman Chris Phillips was penalized for kneeing on the play, but St. Louis did not think the hit was dirty.

“He was just trying to stop me and got his knee out,” St. Louis said. “It wasn’t intentional.”

Hand it to Daniel Alfresson for stating the obvious in post game interviews last night:

“I think they’re in a bit of a funk right now,” said Alfredsson, who scored after Heatley shot wide. “They don’t really know where they are themselves.”

You just have to go back to his short-handed goal (on an empty net) to ralize how big a funk the Lightning are in. Dave Andreychuk called a team meeting immediately after the game and the Lightning broke NHL rank by not having the locker room open to the media in a timely fashion Friday night… But even a team meeting isn’t goign to snap people out of their daydreaming on the Lightning roster.

They’ve tried roster shakeups, they’ve tried switching lines… One only has to wonder before a trade is made and who will be moving on from Hockeybay… and for what?