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Memories Remain For Bolts' Walz

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON

eerlendsson@tampatrib.com

Published: October 18, 2008

TAMPA - Wes Walz walked down the hallway toward the Lightning locker room Friday afternoon as someone playfully yelled in his direction, "Cut the cord!"

His ties to the Minnesota Wild, however, are still pretty important to Walz, who is in his first year as an assistant coach with Tampa Bay. After spending the previous seven years as a player with the Wild, where he was an original member of the franchise, Walz retired after appearing in 11 games last season.

Tonight, the 38-year-old will stand behind the Lightning bench to face the team he put his heart and soul into for most of his career.

As Walz made his way closer to the Tampa Bay locker room, shouts came from opposite ends of the hallway of "Walzy, Walzy" as some of his former Minnesota teammates wanted to say hello.

"It's going to be very weird facing the Wild, because I know a lot of those guys over in that dressing room," Walz said. "And obviously with Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire and the coaching staff over there having such a huge impact on my career and the way it went the last seven or eight years, it's going to be weird looking over at the other bench."

Walz said he has applied what he learned from the coaching staff in Minnesota through the years, and he uses many of those philosophies behind the bench.

"I would say there is a real big chunk of stuff that I've learned as a coach that comes from being around the organization in Minnesota," he said. "It's obviously still pretty fresh in my mind, and we had a lot of success playing the way we played in Minnesota."

When Lightning coach Barry Melrose started to assemble his coaching staff, he targeted Walz because of the time Walz spent working with Lemaire.

"When you've been with an organization for a lot of years and you scratch and claw together, you have a lot of friends in the dressing room," Melrose said.

"I'm sure Wes will be over there bugging them and giving it to them."

Walz, however, is all business regarding tonight's game. There were no plans Friday night to meet with any of his former teammates or coaches. Not when the Lightning are winless in the first four games of the season, and not when Walz is trying to figure out how to leave the game at the rink, which is a big change for him from his playing days.

"I can tell you one thing, I never, ever thought about the game this much when I played," Walz said. "I think about the game constantly now, whereas when I was a player I really focused on my three or four hours in the building and then when I left the rink, I shut it off. I was really good, especially as I got older, at shutting my mind off.

"But being a coach, I've had a little bit more of a difficult time shutting my mind off, as I think about different things a lot more as a coach than I did as a player."

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835.

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