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TAMPA - He had them where he wanted. In a room without windows, in an hour without excuses. John Tortorella did not shout, he did not vent. Instead, he walked out of the room as the game tape began to play.
And when the lights went down, the past came up.
This was not Tampa Bay's second-period collapse of the previous night. This was not the Lightning's third-period meltdowns of the two games before that.
This was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.
This was the players' inspiration, or maybe their punishment. To watch themselves and the upstarts they used to be.
Facing a six-game losing streak, this is how Lightning players spent their Saturday afternoon. Reliving their finest moments as teammates.
Facing Philadelphia two days later, this is how Lightning players spent their Monday evening. Re-creating the magic that once made them champions.
They attacked. They challenged. They came from behind in the first period and lost a lead in the second. Mostly, they refused to bow down.
Yes, it is only one victory. And the Lightning still has much ground to make up. But the players reclaimed valuable property Monday night.
They took back their identity.
"We're still the same team. We've still got the same horses," Chris Dingman said. "I think that's what he wanted us to see. He wanted us to remember what we are capable of doing."
For most of the past two months, Tortorella has been trying to get everyone to forget about the Stanley Cup run of 2004. He didn't want the players living in the past, and he didn't want the world to keep reminding them.
But as they slipped further from the mentality that once made them unique, Tortorella decided to rewind the tapes and turn back the clocks.
He called the players into work on Saturday, hours after they had returned from Atlanta and the last of their six consecutive losses.
Players were expecting a hard day of skating. They anticipated a brutal film session where all of their foibles would be pointed out repeatedly.
Instead, Tortorella had a simple message on the board. There would be no time on the ice. Just some reminiscing. Maybe a few laughs.
"Forget what you are as a team and you forget your identity," Tortorella said. "And there is no better identity than to watch us play in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. That was our best game throughout that playoff run, as far as how hard we played and doing the little things.
"Everybody thinks I was kicking the (crud) out of them. No, I wanted them to feel good about themselves and see who they are and what they are."
It was not meant to be a critique. Tortorella did not stick around to point out how this guy was no longer checking like he did against Calgary, or that guy wasn't hustling into the corner the way he did in the playoffs.
The players understood the message without being told. And they took it to heart after watching Game 7 from beginning to end.
"He just said, "Enjoy yourselves. See ya tomorrow,"' Nolan Pratt said. "It was some positive reinforcement at a time when we really needed it."
The plan paid off immediately Monday night. The Lightning did not play perfectly. There were still some penalties that should have been avoided. And there were some ugly turnovers that could have been deadly.
But the spirit was there. The verve that was once this franchise's trademark made a reappearance.
And when it was all over, when the Lightning had beaten the Flyers 5-2, captain Dave Andreychuk stood in the locker room and reminded his teammates that this type of game used to be the norm around here.
"That's what they were talking about afterward," Tortorella said. "About how they did the little things."
This is the way they used to play, as if their hair was ablaze. Always in a hurry, never looking behind. They were renegades and they loved the role.
This was before Andreychuk had his name on the Cup. Before Marty St. Louis was an MVP. Before Vinny Lecavalier had become Brad Pitt.
Maybe success spoiled them just a bit. Or maybe the pressure that comes with being a defending champion overwhelmed them.
Whatever the cause, the Lightning clearly was not the same team. And what was worrisome is there was no simple answer.
It wasn't just goaltending. It wasn't just special teams. It wasn't that the offense had yet to get on track or that defenders were struggling under the new rules or that the moon was not in the seventh house.
The Lightning did not have to fix one thing. It had to fix everything. And it started with the team's mind-set.
That's where Saturday's matinee came in. It wasn't just games the players had been dropping, it was an attitude that had been lost.
They found it in that videotape.
They found it in themselves.