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Lightning Getting Back To Basics After Loss

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 17, 2007

TAMPA - The tape doesn't lie to the Lightning coaching staff.

So after reviewing the events of Saturday's 6-4 loss in Sunrise to in-state rival Florida, Lightning coach John Tortorella and associate Mike Sullivan brought the players in for a full-fledged practice Tuesday morning.

Tortorella isn't crazy about the idea of practicing three consecutive days - a rare early break in the schedule with five days between games this week gave the Lightning four open days - and originally planned to give the players a day of rest on Tuesday.

'I think the Florida game dictated on how this week was going to be run and we have a lot of things to improve on and we needed these three days,' Tortorella said. 'We've done a lot of tape and we'll show more tape today.'

Instead of lounging by the pool or knocking a few golf balls around the course, the Lightning went to work on their special teams play. In the early going, Tampa Bay has allowed five power-play goals on 21 chances, three on Saturday with two of those coming on a pair of five-on-three advantages for the Panthers.

'I looked at this as a day to give them off as I looked at the schedule, but I just think there are some things that need to be rectified right away,' Tortorella said. 'So we looked at it right away, and it wasn't a hard practice, it was a more technical practice on the penalty kill mostly. We also got in some power-play work while Sully Sullivan worked on the penalty kill.'

That meant that a big part of Tuesday's practice involved getting back to basics.

'We needed to get our foundation straightened out on that,' Tortorella said. 'So Sully walked through it at the end of practice. We showed quite a bit of tape on that and more or less debated some of the things we did wrong on the tape.'

And there was one other thing that showed up on the tape the coaching staff wants to get straightened out for Thursday's game at Boston in the hopes of keeping one loss from turning into a streak.

'We did not play hard enough Saturday in a lot of areas by a lot of people; the bus is full in that aspect as far as how hard you have to play,' Tortorella said. 'That's something you can control and that's something we really need to answer.'

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835 or eerlendsson@tampatrib.com.

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