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Boyle Ready To Get Back In Game

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 22, 2007

TAMPA - Dan Boyle has been skating in circles, on the ice and in his mind, in the four weeks that have passed since he had surgery to repair three severed tendons in his left wrist.

Tampa Bay's best defenseman was told at the time that he would be out of the lineup four to six weeks - with the four-week mark passing Sunday. Instead of a scheduled office visit today, Boyle was given an examination Saturday night. Richard Gray, the hand specialist who performed the surgery on Sept. 23 after one of Boyle's skates fell on his wrist in a freak locker-room accident, gave a positive prognosis.

With the tendons healing as expected, Boyle has been cleared to resume everything but contact drills in practice and has been given the green light to begin aggressive strengthening of his left wrist. With the word good on his rehabilitation, it is a good bet Boyle will be back in action at some point this week - the Bolts play Wednesday at Washington and at home against Philadelphia on Thursday and Saturday against Buffalo.

'You're darn right,' Lightning coach John Tortorella said Saturday night when a reporter intimated Boyle might be back soon.

Tortorella's response could easily be construed as the words of a coach desperate to get a key cog in his team's engine back on the ice as soon as possible. But to this point in the young season, Boyle's absence has been felt minimally, as Tampa Bay has won four of its first six games.

The fact that the core of healthy defensemen - notably the increased roles of Paul Ranger, Shane O'Brien and rookie Mike Lundin - has stepped up to the task and the team is winning has made sitting out the first two-plus weeks of the season easier to handle for Boyle.

'If we would have had a losing record ... I can't stand losing, and I would be ripping my hair out, so it's nice to see the guys playing really well,' said Boyle, who set a franchise record last season with 20 goals by a defenseman and finished with a career-high 63 points.

'I want to be out there,' Boyle said. 'I'm just letting the doctors do their work, let team trainers Tom Mulligan and Jason Serbus get some strength back in the wrist. And if I have to play with some pain for a while, so be it.'

During his rehab, Boyle has spent plenty of time on the ice trying to keep his conditioning level up without getting into game action. With each passing week, he has seen his involvement in practice gradually increase. Whereas Boyle started doing a lot of skating drills and laps after practice, in the past week or so he has been participating in some drills that involve passing and shooting.

And once he returns to the lineup, Boyle won't be eased back in.

'When he comes back, he's in and he's playing,' Tortorella said. 'We're not concerned about Danny's conditioning level because he is so efficient with his conditioning and his skating. And don't any of you guys in the media talk him into being tired; he's not going to be tired when he starts playing. And he's close ... he's going to start practice, and then I think eventually as we go through the middle of the week, it's how he feels. And we're real excited about getting him back in there as quick as we can.'

For Boyle's part, he's ready to get back to action after missing his longest stretch of games in a Lightning uniform. Being pushed by associate coach Mike Sullivan and strength and conditioning coach Eric Lawson the past four weeks has him longing for game action.

'They've been skating my tail off and it's been miserable, miserable. I'm glad that they are enjoying it,' Boyle said. 'That, more than anything else would want to make me get back quicker.'

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

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