Columns

Will joy fade as bags are packed?

By JOHN ROMANO, Times Columnist
Published November 8, 2007

TAMPA - Brad Richards makes a backward pass between his legs and, suddenly, the losing streak seems irrelevant.

Johan Holmqvist makes a glove save on a point-blank shot 6 feet away and, suddenly, hope has returned to the rink.

Lightning players pack their bags for the bus ride to the airport and, suddenly, the dull ache in your head kicks in.

Oh, for a short time Wednesday night, the misery was forgotten. The final whistle blew and a group of weary players celebrated. Tampa Bay scored 108 seconds into the game against Florida, and barely hung on for a 3-1 victory, the first around here in nearly two weeks. Players looked focused, hungry and efficient.

And yet, 12 hours from now, it may be completely irrelevant.

Once again, the road is calling.

And the question is whether the players will ever answer.

The Lightning returns to its version of Neverland tonight against Carolina, and all that hangs in the balance is a one-game winning streak, and a hockey team's sanity.

"It's been like a long, dark cloud above us on the road," Marty St. Louis said.

That's what happens when a team gets five weeks into the season and still hasn't won a game outside of its arena. When a team of All-Stars and award- winners loses confidence in its direction.

This is the bind the Lightning finds itself in again. For the third season in row, Tampa Bay has hit the ice stumbling. Two years ago, the Lightning was 7-9-2 in early November. Last year, it was 6-7-1. Now, the Lightning is 6-8-1.

You can say it's early. You can say there is plenty of time to rebound. But you can also say the Lightning has not made it above the No. 7 seed or past the first round of the postseason the past two seasons.

In the salary cap era, there is no time to waste. The difference between the Lightning being the No. 7 seed and the No. 2 seed last season was 14 points. That's seven victories. Or, basically, one extra victory a month.

When you look at it that way, you understand the urgency preached by coach John Tortorella from the first days of a season.

"We have to have that mind-set as a player: 'Yeah, we're doing some good things, but we have to do more,'" Tortorella said. "We need to continue to work on the details and get bigger plays at bigger times, both offensively and defensively to get us over the hump. We're close. But close is close, it's still not enough.

"That's what you have to be careful of as an organization when you're going through this kind of funk. I think the guys have applied themselves, but it still isn't good enough. We need something more."

That something more on Wednesday night was goaltending. It is becoming, once again, the story of a season.

Holmqvist was brilliant for much of the game against the Panthers, saving a flurry of shots in a frantic third period. It was refreshing. It was exciting. It was, in a way, almost predictable.

Holmqvist is 5-2 at home this season with a 2.23 goals-against average. He is 0-4 with a 4.72 on the road. The trend was similar last season when he was 15-5-1 at home and 12-10-2 on the road.

Few teams play as well on the road as they do at home, but the discrepancy with Holmqvist and the Lightning is simply too wide to write off as coincidence.

"It's tough because we're trying just as hard on the road," Holmqvist said. "We've played some good games on the road and lost. We've played some bad games and lost. We need to do what we did tonight. We played good defense, we didn't take too many penalties and we held on. We need to bring this game on the road with us."

For the Lightning, there is not much time to spare. Already the team is dealing with its first major injury of the past four seasons. Dan Boyle is about to have his second wrist surgery, and team officials are not predicting a return date. Considering he re-injured the wrist after a five-week absence the last time, it's probably safe to assume he will be gone this time until at least January and probably beyond.

Last season, ownership agreed to add defensive help late in the season when the Lightning was making a postseason surge. That's going to be a much harder sell this season. Particularly when you looked around the St. Pete Times Forum on Wednesday night and saw thousands of empty seats.

It was the most emphatic indication yet that fans are growing tired of the uneven performances. Of the leads blown and the opportunities missed. And it's going to make it harder to convince an outgoing ownership group to invest any more.

"We know it's going to turn around," St. Louis said. "We just have to keep plugging away and believing in ourselves."

Maybe, if you are the optimistic sort, you figure this will be the one that brightens the landscape.

Perhaps Wednesday night's game will be like the mid-December victory last season that transformed the Lightning from a team that began 14-17-2 to one that finished 30-16-3.

A recovery is certainly a possibility. Clearly there is enough talent to make it happen.

The question is whether the Lightning is ready to turn it around tonight.

John Romano can be reached at (727) 893-8811.

[Last modified November 8, 2007, 00:23:41]