TAMPA - It isn't a big word. Five letters, no more.
It isn't a difficult word. One syllable, rhymes with straight.
It isn't an unusual word. Heck, people overuse it all the time.
For the life of him, however, John Tortorella could not bring himself to say it. He would start, and he would catch himself, as if he were trying to pronounce a foreign dish in its native tongue. Then he would stop. The (bleeping) g-word, he finally called it.
Great, I said.
Good, he said.
We were discussing greatness, Torts and I. Rather, I was discussing it. What Tortorella was doing was letting the word bounce harmlessly off his chest, uninvited and beneath consideration. To paraphrase Mae West, greatness has nothing to do with it.
Tortorella was sitting on top of his desk, as if it were a magic carpet and, when you consider the run his team has been on lately, it just might be.
To the untrained eye - and let's face it, the history of the Lightning doesn't offer many lessons - this certainly looks like greatness. The Lightning has been the best by-golly team in hockey lately, better than the Red Wings or the Avalanche or the Senators. It could win the Presidents' Trophy, which would make up for all those ballot box gaffes.
After Saturday's victory, Tampa Bay has won eight in a row, and hadn't lost in 15 games (for whatever reason, the league does not count overtime losses as interruptions to a winning streak). Since Jan. 3, it has led the NHL in scoring.
In other words, the Lightning seems to have been better than good.
What is the protocol here? When does a team achieve greatness? When does it stop being a nice little run and become a new reality? When do you stop talking about the promise of a player and talk about the delivery?
For two months now, the Lightning has been special. Considering that until last season, this team hadn't even been good, it has been a joy to behold. Since the first of the year, the Lightning is 24-4-1-4.
Come on, I said.
Say it.
Tortorella cannot do it. He lets the word hang in the air, hovering like a hummingbird in a building, confused by its new surroundings. He shakes his head. He laughs. You get the feeling that if it were up to him, it would be called the Pretty Nice Wall of China.
"The g-word, that's a dangerous word," he said. "It's easy to say. It's easy to coin a team this or a player this, because things are going good. But that isn't it. Wait until there are rough times.
"To get to where you're talking about, you have to do it over and over and over, through all kinds of adversity. You have to accomplish more than we have. You have to do it longer than we have."
None of this should surprise you. The NHL doesn't give out trophies in March and Torts isn't the kind of guy to stay up nights working on his acceptance speech.
"Is this team there?" he said. "No (bleeping) way."
On the other hand, part of the success of a great team comes from the self-belief that it is great. That's where the swagger comes from.
For all his reticence, the season was three words old when Tortorella introduced the word "great" to his team. On the Lightning's first meeting of the year, he gave each player a book called Good to Great. The opening sentence, "Good is the enemy of great," has become a theme on the team, plastered on signs and repeated often.
The message is this: Don't be satisfied with last season's smattering of success. It wasn't enough. As for the current hot streak? It isn't enough, either.
"Through this run, we've won some games we wouldn't have won last year," Tortorella said. "We've played with the right kind of arrogance. We have the attitude we can beat anyone. Now, we need to learn to do it on a consistent basis."
Okay, you say. If you will not concede greatness to this team, how about to its players. How about to Martin St. Louis?
Certainly, you can build the argument. St. Louis leads the NHL in points and general manager Jay Feaster says he would vote for St. Louis to win the Hart Trophy (MVP) of the NHL. St. Louis also could win the Art Ross (most points), Richard (most goals) and Selke (best defensive forward) trophies.
Know this: Tortorella loves St. Louis. He likes the stubborn streak of St. Louis, who has spent his career proving to people he's big enough to play.
So, John. Is St. Louis a great player?
"No," Tortorella said. "I'm not being negative here. But come to me in a couple of years with that question, and we'll talk about it."
How about Vinny Lecavalier, who as of late has played his best hockey since arriving here. Did you see the goal against Colorado? Have you seen him move the puck?
"No," Tortorella said. "He's halfway through a process. Potentially, there is greatness there. But potential is another dangerous word."
Of course, Tortorella is right about all of this. The formula for greatness is something like this: It's ability times achievement over time.
The Lightning still doesn't have enough achievement. It has not sustained for enough time. If you think of greatness as a big body of water, the Lightning has just gotten its toes wet. (Personally, I think St. Louis is up to his waist, but that's just me.)
Still, there is a time in every champion where greatness is born. You start to see flashes of it, then more sustained moments, then higher rewards. Then one day, someone is lifting a trophy, and you can say it out loud.
Great? Alexander was great. Gatsby was great. Balls of fire were great.
The Lightning? Right now, it's going good guns. It's darned impressive. It's a barrel of grins. But, no, it isn't great.
