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With 41 games left one of the team's biggest needs is also one of the simplest.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 8, 2002
PHOENIX -- There is nothing like a little positive reinforcement.
It's one thing for a coach to talk about the way he wants his team to play. It is quite another for the players to do it and get results. Such was the case Sunday night at America West Arena.
Lightning players decided, after persistent lobbying by coach John Tortorella and practices completely devoted to it, that they were going to get to the net. And, golly gee, Wilbur, they scored twice on tip-ins during a 3-0 victory over the Coyotes, a team that has been pretty formidable at home.
Why it took Tampa Bay so long to embrace this strategy seems to be a question for the ages. Even the players shrugged when asked.
But with 41 games remaining and the hunt for a playoff spot about to become serious, Tortorella can only hope the players have committed to that kind of style.
If so, they have taken a huge step for the good of the team and their development as players.
Planting oneself in front of the net is serious business. It might not be the bloodbath it once was -- referees no longer look blindly at cross-checks to the back of the head, stick blades in the ribs or slashes to the ankle from a goaltender's stick -- but it still takes a warrior's mentality to absorb the abuse that comes with the unfriendly territory.
It also takes a realization that actions that might result in a goal -- creating a screen or blocking a defender from getting a rebound your teammate captures -- might not show up on the score sheet.
That is no small detail with lucrative bonuses tied to individual achievement.
As Lightning general manager Rick Dudley said after last week's disheartening 2-0 loss to the Wild: "We don't recognize there are certain things that will only be recognized by coaches and teammates. You see a goal scored and you don't get an assist, you have to have the satisfaction of knowing you helped getting a goal scored.
"We're not at the point yet where we do things for the collective good of the team."
Simply charging the net through the slot has its advantages, as Zdeno Ciger demonstrated with his long-range re-direction of Vinny Lecavalier's pass/shot.
"It's all mind-set," said left wing Dave Andreychuk, whose career has been defined by his touch around the net. "You have to put it in your mind you are going to get a cross-check in the back, but you also might get a chance to score a goal. That's being unselfish.
"It's tough and we still are not doing it enough. You have to sacrifice yourself to get a goal."
Size doesn't matter in this endeavor. Two of Tampa Bay's smallest players -- Martin St. Louis (5 feet 9, 185 pounds) and Sheldon Keefe (5-11, 185) -- are its most willing net dwellers.
Keefe spices it up as well, poking at the goalie's glove when he covers the puck, pushing, shoving and ticking off the opposition.
Maybe the opponent is mad enough to take a swing and get a penalty. Maybe he is agitated enough that he is thinking about payback and not his defensive positioning.
Either way, Keefe is not going to give him a free ride.
"Very rarely when I go to the net do I finish the play on my feet," Keefe said. "Even in juniors, a majority of the goals come from in front of the net. You want to create as much havoc as you can and get a rebound. You have to be in the right place at the right time and win the battles."
"No one can think there is not one man on this team that can't do it, not one," Dudley said. "You have to be committed. Look at (former Lightning) Dino Ciccarelli. He was a little guy with a big heart who scored a bunch of goals in the NHL not from more than a foot away. He just refused to believe he was small."
With a playoff spot just seven points away, it is time for the Lightning to play big.