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.

How do you do, Todd Wright, at Tampabaylightning.com? Todd is the official blogger for the Bolts.

Charlie has a piece of artwork to remind us of what we are fighting for!

Win, Loss, Win, Loss, over and over and over again…

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.

San Antonio in 2006 — and Los Angeles after that

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?

I know I brought up Newks’ a couple of months ago — the fact that it was going to be demolished and the fact it would be re-established within the building that was going to replace it…

I thought everyone might want to take a gander at the rendering of what is going to replace the current structure. Lo and behold the Plaza at Channelside:

For those curious, Tampa Bay is 2nd in the league (after 5 home games) in attendance average with 20,752. The Lightning’s game by game attendance breakdown can be found on The Sports Network.

John Grahame may have gone into Thursday night’s action with a 1.87 GAA and a record to go along with it but between penalty antics and plain, flat out stupid play in the 2nd period, it becam clear why there are Lightning fans who believed Grahame not to be a #1 goaltender.

During a Tampa Bay power play early in the 2nd, Dany Heatly broke away and went in alone on Grahame who came far out of the net in order to challenge Dany…

…So far that he took himself too far away from the goal, missed clearing the puck away from Heatly and it became a great scoring opportunity for Ottawa. Tampa’s defense scrambled to cover the net but Daniel Alfredsson converted what was a gimmie goal with an all-but-empty net.

All of this, and Grahame sent the Senators onto the power play because he decided to throw his stick in a desperate attempt to get the puck away from Heatly.

Add this incident to another incident in front of the Lightning goal (where Grahame decided to take a smack at a player after a botched scoring opportunity by Ottawa) and Grahame loses any respect I held for him. Stupid decisions, stupid tactics, all of this while being on the opposite end of the ice from one of the greatest goaltenders the world has ever seen.

The game itself was solid — at least through the first two periods. The fact the Lightning were playing for the second straight night against a well rested Ottawa team wasn’t a factor. What was, was extremely poor defense that led to Ottawa’s first goal and Grahame’s blunder that gave Ottawa the lead. The Lightning seemed to lose faith in itself leading up to the third period and collapsed.

I’m trying to make heads and tails of the Lightning right now — so many odd-man attacks and no patience to wait for teamates to enter the zone. What exactly was the basis of the Rob DiMaio acquisition when we needed defensive help? Wasn’t the role fot he warm-body-on-ice already handed to Chris Dingman? Wouldn’t prospects like Nick Taransky or Mark Fritz fill the roll amiably – and mroe cheaply for that matter? A good locker room presence doesn’t always make up for signing talent where you need it.

Ottawa remains undefeated — stomping Tampa Bay 4-1 — and Tampa Bay remains listless in it’s cup defense

…The Lightning are not playing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania tonight. They are playing at home in Downtown Tampa. I think it’s appropriate you air footage of Tampa instead of footage of Pittsbutgh when showing city footage at all.

Just a suggestion.

(they corrected the problem the second time they showed footage of the city)

Or in laymans terms – Lightning own Thrashers

SAVE THE INSTIGATOR!!!

I’ve bene taking time off from Boltsmag lately just because since I returned I have not been in the mood to blog but there have been some interesting developments.

First off, Timo Helbling being demoted yesterday by the Lightning and the defensive total being reduced again to 6… Helbling hasn’t been terrible as he stands with a minus two plus/minus and one point to his name in five games played. Still, the Lightning are lookign to start something which leads to the next newsbrief.

Nick Taransky and Evgeny Artyukhin were both recalled by the Lightning from Springfield. I am assuming the move is justified in part by the lack of fire form some players on the roster right now and the so-close-but-so-far finishes versus Washingotn and Buffalo.

OK, two games, one minor league promotion, two flights, a load of subway travel and half a week and I am back.

The interesting story that came up the day I left was John Tortorella’s declaration the Lightning were through with planning and playing under the new rules – meaning the red-line was to be employed during practice and in game situations. The Lightning had looked like a disorganized mess even in their two early victories and one culprit was the mad-dash-two-line-pass attempts.

One of the other culprits plaguing the team is the power play. Torts was thinking about adding a 3rd power play unit:

“I’ve toyed in my mind with having three power-play units,” Tortorella said.

The main reason is to keep the players not normally involved on the power play in the game. The last thing Tortorella wants is six or seven players thrust into the heat of a game after sitting for long stretches.

“I’ve (also) toyed in my mind having three power-play units because simply the other guys aren’t working,” Tortorella said. “Eventually we’ll have to look at three units not just (because) of the amount of time you’re on (the power play), but it’s a good push for the other two units. If they’re not doing their job, get the other unit in there.”

When I originally read that earlier this week I thought it was so simple and yet so necessary right now in the NHL… I thought it was genius.

In both cases, it seems to have helped. I didn’t get to witness the 4-3 loss to Buffalo but seeing it was a Shoot-out loss, I thought it was a clear sign the team was responding. The Tribune spun the loss — a franchise first as it was the Lightning’s first shootout of the season and first shootout loss — in an attempt to keep people from getting too put-off by the end result. Last night’s game was another example as the Lightning beat Pittsburg 3-1 with Vinny, Vaclav and Ruslan (Oh, my!) dominating the game.

Meanwhile, the Lightning have seven defensemen again as Paul Ranger has been promoted as a precautionary measure during the road trip. With Daryl Sydor hurting and Timo Hebling struggling the rookie struggles on the blue line, Ranger adds immediate depth to a defensive core that lacks it – even if he isn’t the veteran force that Jay Feaster or John Tortorella would prefer.

And while I can I might as well give props to my hotel out in LA — the Ramada Inn on Vermont is a great place to stay in LA… Close to the Red Line and not far away (with thanks to that train) from both Downtown and Hollywood.

Ticket prices to see the Lightning have increased 2.3% to $44.23 � about $3 higher than the league average. It’s a pretty good deal compared with NHL prices around the country. Throw in the fact that the lightning are the defending World Champions and current masters of Lord Stanley’s cup, and I don’t see why local fans shouldn’t make plans to attend soon.

During the 2004 playoffs, Sports Illustrated had a difficult decision to make. They were going to put the Flames, who had just eliminated Detroit, on the cover of their magazine. Instead, they chose to put the NBA playoffs on the cover, and Flames fans couldn’t have been more grateful.

We dodged the curse.

Not so this year. The Flames, SI’s pick to win it all, are struggling to find their identity. Hell, the Flames are struggling to kill a penalty. Sitting at 1-3-1, the Flames are probably wishing the media pundits would have left them alone so that they could climb into a dark hole in peace.

Fortunately, Calgary has some company. SI’s #2 pick? The Flyers. The team that SI called “Young, fast and ready to roll” have sputtered as well, stumbling out of the gates at 1-2-0. Even if one can only count the number of games played on one hand, who would have figured that Washington would have won more games than either the Flames or Flyers? Who would have figured the Capitals would win two games in the entire month?

The Lightning, SI’s #4 pick, havent exactly wowed either, sporting a very pedestrian 2-2-1 record, in the very pedestrian Southwest Division.

The only team out of SI’s top four that is doing well are the Ottawa Senators, the only undefeated team at 4-0. While at first thought it appears they have escaped the wrath of Sports Illustrated, you just know they are going to end up facing the Leafs in the playoffs, and have their hopes crushed just like ever year.

Thankfully, with a new edition on the stands, Sports Illustrated will have cast hockey to the shadows like it usually does, and the hockey world can right itself.

But until then, to add insult to injury, the New York rangers are 2-1-2 and leading the Atlantic. They were SI’s pick to finish dead last.

…Get there and they’ll do the rest.

With an odd parody of the Doors, I say adieu for a few days as I fly out to Los Angeles. I’ll be back on Saturday evening. Until then I turn the reigns of the site over to Tommy Duncan from Sticks of Fire and The View from Canada columnist Keith Short.

With the talk of Bob Boughner in a Lightning jersey, it should be noted that Bryan Marchment signed with the Calgary Flames for a song today — just over the league minimum.

It makes me question the validity of the Ottawa Sun rumor even more, but it also makes me wonder just what GM Jay Feaster is looking for in an acquisition. “Team first” is a great aspect of any player but when you are looking for a cheap pickup – you have to go on talent before team, unfortunatley.

After 3 games, John Grahame is sporting a 1.35 GAA with 85 saves

Timo Helbling – rookie and #6 defensiveman – is -1… Same as Pavel Kubina and Dan Boyle.
On another Helbling note, I’m too incompetant to spell his name right (previous posts spell his name “Hebling”).

Saturday marks the Lightning’s first out-of-state road came in 3 weeks, a three game series that ends next Thursday at Southeast rival Atlanta.

Atlanta has hosted two very lopsided victories versus division rival Washington… And this has been without Ilya Kovalchuk who has been resigned by the Thrashers.

Tom Jones picked up on the Ottawa Sun rumor of Bob Boughner…

Ya gotta love Worth 1000… Hockey Hockey Hockey (4) is the name of the contest…

An old friend and one of the more knowledgable Lightning fans have there own blog up and running at BoltProspects.com. Chad Schnarr — an old friend from the old FanHome community and the original Boltsmag message board — and Pete C are keeping up with the minor league and junior hockey (as well as foreign prospect) status’ of Lightning players.

These guys can talk circles around me and leave me in a tizzy… They are two of the most informed Lightning fans out there…