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It's Time To Put Bolts On Life Support

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 11, 2008

TAMPA - It would have been a fine night for something unusual.

It would have been a fine night for the Lightning to rise up ... and win consecutive games.

That's how far they've fallen.

That's how bad it is.

Two in a row is the moon.

They haven't managed it in more than a month. The streak lived after a 4-1 loss to Pittsburgh.

Thursday's game was billed as a showdown between the two best players in the league, that precocious Penguin, Sidney Crosby, and Lightning main man Vinny Lecavalier. Instead, a team that has won eight straight beat a team that can't win two straight, the second-worst team in the NHL.

That's about it.

This Is Crazy

The Lightning are searching, but not finding.

They are flailing, but still falling.

"It's a humbling experience," Lightning winger Marty St. Louis said.

The coach pointed to his top players Thursday.

"I just don't think our difference-makers were the difference," John Tortorella said.

But how long can you blame your stars for this bad hockey team?

It would have been a fine night to start something, anything, especially after winning in New York on Tuesday, then grabbing the lead against Pittsburgh.

It doesn't work that way anymore.

Nothing works.

Instead, a Lightning team that was coming off a four-game road trip in which it scored three or more goals scored just one at the Forum on Thursday, despite 36 shots and a four-minute power play in the third period (six shots, one crossbar, no goals).

"We're trying to build on anything," St. Louis said.

The building is close to being condemned.

They're in the basement in the East, seven games under .500, but somehow only eight points out of the last playoff spot. How ridiculous is that?

"I keep hearing about these losing streaks for these other teams," Tortorella said Thursday morning. "It's been a crazy year."

Want crazy? Lecavalier and Crosby didn't net a single point Thursday.

Want crazy? The Lightning have a five-game win streak and a pair of three-game win streaks this season and have still managed to be least in the East. A pair of five-game losing streaks, a four-gamer and a three-gamer will do that. They just ended a seven-game winless streak.

Two in a row?

Are you crazy?

"I guess now we have to win one," St. Louis said.

Barely Breathing

For his part, Tortorella, jockey to a three-legged horse, has decided to close the barn door.

He's too late.

As if he just learned his defense isn't good enough. Tortorella is reeling in his team's aggressiveness, at least when it comes to his young, inexperienced defensemen pressing the issue in the neutral zone.

Too many odd-man rushes have been going the other way, along with goals.

What's next?

The First Annual John Tortorella Neutral Zone Trap?

Johnny Torts would sooner resign (he's in limbo anyway).

But the Lightning mantra, "Safe is Death," has been reality-checked.

"There's the death of your team," Tortorella said in the morning. "I have to worry about the death of the hockey club ... I know eventually we'll get back to the full-fledged system we want to play, but right now we need to take care of ourselves so we don't die. We're on the vine right now and we don't want to die."

You call this living?

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