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Boyle Limited In Return To Practice

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 28, 2007

DETROIT - Dan Boyle practically sprinted down the hallway onto the Lightning team bench on his way to the ice Thursday morning.

It was a much better near-sprint than the trail he took Saturday from the Tampa Bay locker room to the medical office when a skate fell off its hook and severed three tendons in Boyle's left wrist that required surgery to repair Sunday afternoon.

Four days after undergoing the procedure he returned to the ice, albeit in a limited capacity. Though dressed in full gear and able to skate through all the drills, Boyle must keep his left hand off his stick, an impulse he had to fight through Thursday.

'Some of the guys were throwing pucks at me, and my instinct is to put that hand on the stick and try to catch the pass,' said Boyle, who led the team through on-ice stretches Thursday. 'So I had to catch myself a couple of times.'

Boyle has replayed the incident in his mind. He remembers hanging the skate up, looking over at teammate Doug Janik and putting, he believes, his gloves inside his locker seat. When he let the door down to close he was looking over at Janik when he felt the skate fall onto his arm. He immediately grabbed his arm and went straight to see medical trainer Tom Mulligan.

'The first thought that came to mind was, is it an artery,' Boyle said. 'Then when I realized it wasn't, they asked me to put my thumb up and when I couldn't do that that's when I realized . . . at that point it switched from life threatening to how bad am I hurt.'

While Boyle is still projected to miss a total of four to six weeks, Lightning coach John Tortorella said Monday he believes the timetable will be closer to four weeks than six.

In the meantime Boyle will continue to work out and skate to keep his conditioning level up. But he knows it won't be easy to watch from the press box.

'It's going to be just as mentally tough as anything else because I am one of those guys, and I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I take things very seriously and I'm very competitive,' Boyle said. 'I want to be out there every shift, every second so it's going to be a struggle to watch.'

THIN LINEUP: With Thursday's game the next-to-last of the preseason schedule, Tampa Bay's top players took the night off as RW Marty St. Louis, C Vinny Lecavaier and C Brad Richards were not in the lineup to face the Red Wings. In addition, C Chris Gratton (eye) and RW Jason Ward (ankle) did not play. With five forwards not playing, the team dressed eight defensemen and 10 forwards, including RW Justin Keller, who was called up from AHL Norfolk and flew in Thursday morning.

Had Thursday's game been a regular-season game, General Manager Jay Feaster said that everybody would have been able to play.

'We just have some bumps and bruises that we would like to give a couple of extra days to heal,' Feaster said.

Gratton, who missed his third consecutive game with a corneal abrasion, said he tried a contact lens Wednesday night that would have helped the scar tissue to heal. But Gratton's eye is still sensitive and he was unable to get the lens into his left eye. While the vision is starting to clear and he has resumed full practices with the team, his problem at this point is depth perception.

With the undermanned lineup, Tampa Bay fell to Detroit 3-2 in a shootout. Johan Holmqvist started in net stopping 16 of 18 shots in two periods of action, while Marc Denis stopped all 11 shots he faced in the third period and overtime. Matt Smaby and Michel Ouellet scored goals for Tampa Bay, while the Red Wings converted two of their three shootout attempts.

The Lightning (2-1-1 in the preseason) play the final exhibition game Saturday in Dallas.

Final rosters are due to the league by Tuesday, and the Lightning plan to keep 20 active players.

Erik Erlendsson

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