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Meltdown Leads To More Questions, More Concerns

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By Joe Henderson, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2007

Updated: 11/04/2007 12:55 am

TAMPA - Earlier Saturday, before sending his lads out to face Atlanta at the Forum, Coach John Tortorella mused on the just-completed lousy road trip, where the Lightning lost all three games they played.

"I have full confidence that the core players understands how it's done here, understands how to get out of this situation, and we'll all try to do it together," he said.

Then his team went out and had your basic total meltdown, blowing a three-goal lead and losing 6-4 to the Thrashers.

Yes, it's early in the season. And yes, all teams go through rough patches. This team may ultimately be pretty good.

Then again, it may not be. In you're in the mood to panic, feel free.

It's perfectly defensible to look at goalie Johan Holmqvist and curse the Bolts' management for not coming up with a better alternative in the offseason. While you're at it, you can question whether the defense in front of Holmqvist is good enough.

You can question just about everything right now and you won't be wrong.

You also won't be alone. Some of those same questions are being asked in the Lightning's dressing room.

"I'm kind of at a loss for words right now," defenseman Dan Boyle said. "Individually we all need to look in the mirror and step up our game - offensively, defensively, whatever we need to do. We need to not wait around and wait for things to happen, we need to go out and make it happen."

Here's the really bad news about this game.

They did make it happen.

And still lost.

Stars Stepped Up

The Lightning got three assists from Marty St. Louis and three from Vinny Lecavalier. They got a goal from Brad Richards to make it 4-1.

They had even gotten two goals from Shane O'Brien - his first two goals this season. Yeah, it was going swimmingly.

But then the Thrashers got a pair of goals in 61 seconds to make it 4-3, and you could just sense it. The Lightning were flashing back to their lost week in the New York metropolitan area, where they lost three games by a combined 13-2.

"I think that happened a little bit," O'Brien said. "Right now, every little mistake we make is in the net. I don't know why, but we've got to figure it out and we've got to figure it out fast."

They simply have to win games like this.

"It's terrible," O'Brien said.

How terrible? Look no farther than the third period, when the Thrashers scored three goals on just five shots.

Looking For Answers

The Bolts have only an overtime loss - one measly point - to show for their past five games. We'll know soon enough if this is just a funk or the start of something more ominous. This was the first of eight consecutive games against division opponents, so there's really no time to waste in finding out if this team is really as good as it says it can be.

"We play in two days at Florida," St. Louis said. "I remember last year we were in the same spot. We were 5-7 going into Philly. I feel like it's the same thing as last year."

As the muttering, unhappy throng of 19,155 left the Forum, you could tell that there was doubt about this team. There will be, too, until the Bolts prove otherwise; there should be. Tortorella and his players insisted they really played pretty well. Maybe they did, in spots. Not for 60 minutes though. Until they do, they'll be left grasping for answers to unpleasant questions.

"Sometimes I would rather play bad and get the result," St. Louis said. "I think we've played better hockey. We don't deserve what we're getting right now but nobody is going to feel sorry for us. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We've got to line up and get back at it. We've got to make it tilt the other way."

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