TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Roy Sits Out For Disciplinary Reasons

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

ST. LOUIS - Andre Roy has been playing some of his best hockey in recent weeks. So it was a tad surprising Tuesday morning to see that Roy was not in the lineup for Tuesday night's game against St. Louis.

"It's just discipline reasons, I'll leave it at that," Lightning coach John Tortorella said.

Roy's absence didn't have much to do with his on-ice discipline - which has been solid this season - but for his on-bench demeanor during Saturday's game against Florida. During a timeout following an icing call early in the third period, Roy was allegedly yapping at Panthers D Branislav Mezei, whom Roy got into a fight with earlier in the game. Roy kept after Mezei after Tortorella told him to stop, which led to an exchange of words between the coach and player. Roy did not play for the remainder of the third period.

"It was stuff between me and Torts that happened, that's about it," Roy said. "I just have to sit out and wait for the next opportunity."

Tortorella recently has been praising Roy's play - even talking Tuesday morning about the quality minutes the left wing has been providing - and the increased ice time has reflected his play.

Though Roy is averaging less than six minutes of ice time per game this season, in 11 of 12 games heading into Saturday's game against Florida, Roy played seven or more minutes and had been playing more than eight minutes in six consecutive games as he worked up to a regular shift on the third line.

"For once in my career I've been having the opportunity to play some minutes, and ever since I think my confidence has been building," he said. "I feel good, we've been playing well as a line."

While Roy said he doesn't agree with Tortorella in regards to the incident on Saturday, the two have discussed the situation and put it behind them.

"I think I might have overreacted in what I said, and I don't want to go into details, but I maybe said too much, which is not right because he has been fair with me," Roy said. "I'll just shut up now and take this and I'll be ready for the next time I'm in the lineup."

GOALTENDER PRAISE: Tampa Bay's top pick in the 2006 draft, G Riku Helenius, was named the co-goaltender of the week for Canadian junior hockey. In two games with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League last week, Helenius went 2-0 with a 0.50 goals-against and .980 save percentage while pitching a shutout in a 4-0 win against Portland.

Helenius entered Tuesday having won five consecutive starts to improve his record to 15-9-6 with a 2.37 goals against average and .917 save percentage in 30 games. The 19-year-old is in his first year as a pro in North America and was signed to an entry-level contract with Tampa Bay in the summer that will begin next season.

QUICK SIGHTING: D Kevin Quick, Tampa Bay's third-round pick in the 2006 draft, may have found a team to play for, less than a week after being dismissed from the University of Michigan. Quick's name has appeared on a roster at www.pointstreak.com for the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League. The Des Moines home page, however, makes no reference to Quick joining the team, and Lightning management said they were unaware as to whether the 19-year-old had joined Des Moines.

Quick was kicked off the Michigan team Friday, 21 games into his freshman season, for unspecified violation of team rules.

NUTS AND BOLTS: D Doug Janik was a healthy scratch. ... C/LW Vinny Prospal played in his 378th game in a Lightning uniform, moving into 11th place on the franchise list. ... D Dan Boyle played his 366th game, moving into 13th place. ... An announcement of a purchase agreement to sell the team to Oren Koules is believed to be forthcoming this week.

Erik Erlendsson

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT