It may not look like it, but I am around people… Just all over the friggin’ place.

At any rate, Ron Saar interviewed me for his blog.

Lightning vs. Flyes is on righ tnow and I am going to go watch it…

Under the impression only the basic architecture of jersey’s would change, Ron over at Hound Central has put up a slew of posts of renderings of a completely revamped set of uniforms. The Lightning should be noted. (click here for the rendering)

These renderings are by way of 2K Sports forums…

Damn you, Sun Sports, for skippign the first 3 minutes….

And nice job, Buffalo, with blowing a double minor penalty and 4 minute Power Play.

I could be commenting here on the win last night at Times Palace, where the Lightning played on edge again against the high-flying Pittsburgh Penguins and came out with a win. I could rave over and over again about Vincent Lecavalier’s double-spin in the first (that didn’t result in a score but was still incredible none-the-less) or Johan Holmqvist (every time Johan makes a save I think, in a Marge Simpson voice, “Oh, Holmie…” ) and an amiable effort against Kid Sid and Mr. Malkin…

But instead I wanted to focus on a comment Rick Peckham and Bobby Taylor re-iterated from John Tortorella during the telecast. It was a comment about back-to-back series with teams (two games in a row) and how Tortorella was in favor of more of them because it builds more of an edge in players (the rivalry edge) for the next game.

You know, logical scheduling.

Frankly I am with Torts on this with some reservations. While home-and-home series tax players (especially out west) by having to jump from one city to another, while incurring traveling expenses for the franchise in general, back-to-back games against the same opponent do add a little more juice to things. If the first game was a laugher in one teams favor, the second game would likely be played as a make-up game by the losers, looking for a chance to make up for a poor showing. If game #1 between two teams is close and intense, game #2 (from a fan perspective) is more anticipated.

This is compared to the current “thrown up against a wall to see what sticks” scheduling that has teams jumping all over the place night after night.

Of course there is the downside to all this — arena scheduling is a bitch to work with to begin with, add the downtime players will have between games and the questionable availability of ice for practices if there are off-days between games and things get fuzzy real quick.

I still think it’s something that should be explored more (though the immediate drawback would likely be further reduction of inter-conference games, unless two-game series’ were only played against in-conference opponents). It may even garner more interest… And the NHL can use as much additional interest as possible.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages! After 5 performances of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus at the St. Pete Times Forum, your Tampa Bay Lightning are at home once again!

What’s the ice quality? What’s the game quality and does Kid Sid have any other thrills in store for us?

Joe Dumas over at Off Wing Opinion took some time out to talk about Fredrik Norrena taking the reigns over in net for the Columbus Blue Jackets as Pascal Leclaire is out after knee surgery.

For those scoring at home, this is the same Fredrik Norrena that was traded along with Freddie Modin during the summer to Columbus for the services of Marc Denis. The trade has sparked a lot more disgust as the season has progressed. Let me quote some of Dumas’ post though:

Norrena is somewhat of a surprise, posting a 10-9-1 record in his first season in the NHL. His record would be a little better, but Columbus has so far posted the 26th ranked offense in the league. He has posted decent stats, with a SV% of .896 and a GAA of 3.02, including 2 consecutive shutouts. Against the Ducks on Jan. 5 Norrena stopped a Teemu Selanne penalty shot with 21 seconds left to preserve a 4-3, come-from-behind victory.

If you’re pondering the what-could-have-been over this one, you’re not alone. Though Feaster was arguably correct not allowing the team to go into the season with 2 first-year-NHL (though seasoned Euro veteran) goalies as his 1 and 2, it’s very interesting to think of how the Lightning would have played in front of Norrena and Holmqvist. It’s very interesting to think of how much of an impact retaining Freddie Modin would have had on the Lightning (as noted with the defense of defensive forward post). Would the PK unit be more apt? Would Brad Richards be producing on par to previous numbers instead of suffering a fall off?

…or would the Lightning have been hurt with an unproven NHL tandem and a suspect defense in front of them? It all comes down to “woulda’, coulda’, shoulda’” and leaves you to wonder what Jay Feaster is going to do to fill in pieces of the puzzle he helped create.

It would seem that TLW over at LightningHockeyCentral.com went ahead and tagged me, much like Mike Chen had earlier this year… Tagging me and requesting five random facts about me, myself and I…

But all my goooooooood stuff was in the first tagging! It was! I swear! I can’t think up other good stuff about me that isn’t nominally embarassing on the fly — who wants to read out of-the-way facts about me anyway that aren’t interesting nor juicy?

Honestly, read my last tagged response. That’s some good stuff… Maybe I am cheating but still :p.

Tonight’s game versus the Pittsburgh Penguisn will be carried in High Definition for you HDTV/LCD/Plasma addicts ou there.

I didn’t get to watch the entire game but what I did get to watch — starting with Kid Sid’s tying goal at the end of the 2nd period — reminded me of the Lightning of old. The problem is, who was invoking that memory was the Pittsburgh Penguins, not the Lightning themselves. Scrappy, high flying, deft… And Kid Sid’s goal? I’ll put that one up there against Alex Ovechkin’s goal-of-the-year from last season.

The Bolts played the 3rd period with desperation but how much? They seemed disjointed and on edge — undisciplined while this scrappy Penguins crew had the energy to run laps around them (while similarly disjointed and undisciplined) The game came off like a playoff matchup in the “just let’em play” sense… But I had alarm bells going off in my head watching this.

3-2 Lightning win in the SHootout — Martin St. Louis has the only goal in OT while Mark Recci notched his 1300th career point during the 3rd period. The Bolts are headed home to face another barrage of lot’s of games in a narrow timespan…

I just read on TSN that the Habs have canceled practice due to a wide spread flu bug that the team has been afflicted with.

It’s not the fact the Canadiens flight home from Washington turned into a Vomit Comet, but it is the fact we just played them on Tuesday… which means the Lightning roster could be picking up the bug (if they haven’t already dealt with it this season — remember, I’ve been out of the loop lately) and find themselves out-of-sorts while they are entering the all-or-nothing phase of the season.

Chicago, near the heart of the United States. A step away from the west, a step away from the Northeast. Two steps away from the South and a step away from Ontario — the center of the Canadian media and the majority of Hockey Fans in North America.

And yet, Chicago — a black-sheep patriarch of the NHL in the US. The estranged parent that has all the talent and love in the world but just can’t make good on it for one reason or another… And the entire family suffers because Chicago just seem to see straight..

Chicago, Illinois should be the center of things for NHL operations in the US — being relatively close to Canada and relatively close to other regions as I already noted. Chicago should be one of the strongest hockey markets in the National Hockey League — being in the middle of the Rust Belt, having such a long standing and storied franchise.

But it isn’t.

The Chicago Blackhawks are a third tier franchise in it’s own city — arguably behind the AHL franchise that plays in town. Less appealing to local corporations when it comes to season tickets than Arena Football. And where Chicago has failed — refusing to endear itself to the fans, refusing to change and adapt to the times, acting as if it’s entitled while the loyalist numbers within the city and region dwindle with each passing year, and refusing to reach out to it’s base — so goes the NHL. Numbers are down across two countries.

I realize that people are going to argue with what I am implying. New York and Toronto hold the league’s interest and priorities. Yet as one city is the corporate base and the media center of the US (New York) it happens to also be the most overhyped market in the country Toronto (as well as the other Canadian cities) is solid by itself. Reaching new fans isn’t so tough north of the border as it is here in the States.

I could easily have just linked to Bill Wirtz “fan site” to cover my point, but I want to go beyond Wirtz in argument. It’s a fact that the Original Six teams are draws throughout the NHL — sans one team. That team has lost our interest and has been hiding in the corner, unable to get a prominent position in the standings or in stature as one of the founding members of the National Hockey League. With so many fans that (usually) can experience winter sports — why is it that the team arguably in the middle of hockey’s base in America is allowed to actively limit itself and thus hurt the league… year, after year, after year…?

Get it off your chest… Or lap… or head (why are you still wearing the Christmas cap after all?).

At least tonight’s game is broadcast locally. But will that prove to be a good or bad thing?

I’m not big on yearly recaps.. When you reach a certain point, they all become cliché while reviewing the last year. Yet when it comes with great writing and a hockey slant as Mike Chen pulls off in his 10 point recap of 2006, it’s fun and informative.

“Irksome”

“More of the Same”

I don’t know what else you could say to describe the misguidedness of the game on Tuesday night. And if the Lightning were under-prepared (or couldn’t get there head aroudn the notion they had a hockey game last night) then it falls on the coach’s shoulders.

Just saying. I’ve been a bit agitated lately and it’s easy to assign blame, but it’s not easy to fix problems — and the Lightning are a problem if they can only play lip-service to the urgency of turning the season around right now.

Not a way to start the new year…

I don’t know to be thankful or not that the game was not broadcast locally…

Eric E. reports Holmqvist in net tonight. Paul Ranger’s right hand makes him a game time decision.

This is a real challenge for the Lightning coming off their effort the other night against this Canadiens team. The question is — can they do it again? They are facing one of the top teams in the East that is looking to rebound from it’s poor Florida showing from last week.

If both teams play as well as they can, this is going to be a good one.

I made a little statement in one of yesterday’s posts:

That’s a wider notion than just on-ice play. Safe is death — (making) sure your locker room situation remains passive and unchanged can lead to a negative, atrophic effect on the team’s resolve to win.

That being said, Damian Cristodero on his Lightning Strikes blog for the St. Pete Times goes into the chemistry situation more in-depth than my short allusion:

Perhaps it has to do with how or why a team will acquire a player. If the player will be a short-term rental, then perhaps the character and chemistry issues don’t matter as much. I bring this up because of what GM Jay Feaster said on Monday, that a good locker room makes trading more difficult. I also recall what Rob DiMaio said earlier in the year, that Tampa Bay’s locker room was so tight, he felt it difficult to at first to feel comfortable.

How much should chemistry matter in changing up the roster? Should a locker room be so tight that it’s hard for new guys to get involved? What happens when a tight-tight knit group isn’t playing well? There are a lot of different answers given by the fans on Damian’s post — some talking specifically about the chemistry issue and others moaning about Modin-for-Denis — but what’s right?

Ideally you don’t want to bring in someone who is so volatile to the mix that they shake up a team on ice and off-ice/outside-of-the-arena ways, but at one point you have to stop being critical of chemistry and take chance — moving or letting go of someone popular in the locker room and off ice in order to bring in someone who fills a team need.

Vilify Feaster if you will for trading Modin for Denis, but that was a risk that had to be taken (no one knew Johan Holmqvist would sign with the Lightning, nor work out). That’s also the truth to any potential trade on the horizon — you can’t see everything down the road with certain moves, but it is wiser to plan long term than for the quick fix. Chemistry plays into that, and chemistry can play against that if a tight-knit group will not be open to change.

As a big fan of Entourage on the HBO cable network, I always saw something oddly familiar about Kevin Connolly (aka Eric “E” Murphy — Vincent Chase’s manager):

I knew Connolly from his earlier work in unpopular shows and movies (Rocky V, Unhappily Ever After among others) but that wasn’t why the guy looked so damned familiar, like I saw him more regularly than just on TV…

Maybe it’s just me? Maybe if I had a more candid shot of Mr. St. Louis you could see the similarities.

Oh well… just a thought.

I’m going to try launching an official-Boltsmag-message-board again, though this is a forum I only generally control. Register if you wish, take part in the discussion if you want… Go forth and be plentiful on the site if you will.

Happy New Year to readers and Lightning fans everywhere (along with the rest of the Tampa Bay and Hockey blogosphere)!

So it’s 2007. It’s January 2007. As the St. Petersburg Times Eduardo A. Encina points out, if history repeats itself — this is where the Lightning will (and must) perform:

I’ll let the team’s past 3 seasons records in January do the talking:

2002-03 17-13-5-3 / 4-7-3-1 conference semifinal
2003-04 15-13-6-1 / 11-3-0-2 Stanley Cup champion
2005-06 19-17-3 / 8-4-1 conference quarterfinal

(order reversed and emphasis added by me)

Words like “Desperate” and “urgency” were tossed around in the above posted article — and there is an urgency indeed. In January of the past 3 seasons, the Lightning have played with that urgency. Here’s a little reminder of what else they played with: The notion that playing it safe was not going to cut it if they wanted to win.

That’s a wider notion than just on-ice play. Safe is death — makign sure your locker room situation remains passive and unchanged can lead to a negative, atrophic effect on the team’s resolve to win.

Safe is Death, but for the sake of saying so — same can be death, too.

Also, use the Safe Is Death graphic.