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Bolts Take Big Step Back Entering All-Star Break

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By CARTER GADDIS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 25, 2008

TAMPA - Once again, just as the Lightning began to generate the flicker of a belief that the worst might be behind them, they stumbled badly Thursday in an 8-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Fitting, perhaps, that Tampa Bay reached the All-Star break on such a sour note.

Instead of building on a modest three-game win streak and gathering momentum for a potential push into the Eastern Conference playoff picture, instead of using Dan Boyle's long-awaited return from injury as inspiration and his two goals as impetus, the Lightning allowed the defending conference champion to dictate play most of the night.

"Every time they took one step, right away we took one back," said Lightning right wing Marty St. Louis, who was talking about Thursday's game but could have said the same about this whole, disjointed Lightning season.

Maintaining momentum has not exactly been Tampa Bay's strong suit. Which is why 50 games in, it finds itself at the bottom of the conference standings with 45 points, seven behind Southeast Division-leading Carolina.

"We talked about it, this was a big game for us before the break," said Lightning right wing Andre Roy, who fought former Lightning teammate Luke Richardson and recorded an assist. "We need wins badly right now if we want to stay in the race. ... We need to do more if we want to still have a hope to be in the playoffs."

Of course, conference-leading Ottawa did have motivation on its side, viewing Thursday's game as a chance to halt the negative momentum of a three-game losing streak.

And Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson made absolutely sure his team would not carry a bad memory into the break.

In his second game back after missing two with a sore hip, Alfredsson - who'll start on the top line for the Eastern Conference, along with Vinny Lecavalier, in Sunday's All-Star Game - recorded his sixth career hat trick and a career-best seven points to move past Lecavalier for the NHL scoring lead with 67.

"He's one of the best players in the league with the puck," Roy said. "He's a good stick-handler. And I think when he's in the lineup which he was not during Tampa Bay's 2-0 victory at Ottawa on Saturday, the team plays with a little more confidence. He was a good leader tonight, I think, for them."

Alfredsson and linemate Jason Spezza scored 29 seconds apart in the first period, and Alfredsson's second made it 3-0 with 1:19 left before the first intermission. During that intermission, Coach John Tortorella benched starting goalie Johan Holmqvist in favor of 21-year-old rookie Karri Ramo.

It was a deflating game for Holmqvist, to say the least. He came in on a four-game win streak and seemed to have regained the coach's confidence after spending three weeks working on fundamentals and watching Ramo take his first, tentative steps toward - perhaps - becoming Tampa Bay's full-time starter.

Then again, Ramo didn't help his own cause Thursday by allowing five goals on 12 shots, including one that bounced in off the knob of his stick as he tried to clear it.

"I don't know exactly what happened tonight," Holmqvist said. "But obviously, it wasn't good."

It was so bad, in fact, that Tortorella chose not to talk about it.

In the strictest possible interpretation of the NHL mandate that he make himself available to reporters after the game, the coach did, in fact, attend his postgame session.

There, he said, simply: "I'm here. But you're going to have to write your own story, because I'm not going to take any questions. You guys do your own thing with your story."

And he walked out of the room.

Reporter Carter Gaddis can be reached at (813) 259-8291 or igaddis@tampatrib.com.

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