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Reunion Brings Blasts From The Past

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2009

The three of them had dinner Sunday night. Memories were the main course. How could they not be? On a June night five years ago, their cup runneth over, and the cup was the Stanley Cup, and it all seemed as if it was just the start for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"It seems like a long time ago," Vinny Lecavalier said.

"Marty and Vinny and I were talking about it ... how fast it all goes by," Brad Richards said Monday morning.

Richards was back at the Forum for the first time since he was traded last season. He wore the practice jersey of a Dallas Star. When he peeked down he hall, he saw only two men left from the Cup winners of 2004, his friends Marty St. Louis and Vinny Lecavalier. It's getting lonely down there.

"Where'd everybody go?" St. Louis said with a grin.

You know what?

They hit the ice Monday night and turned back the clock, combining for seven points. They had a blast, well, Richards did until near the end, before Vinny won it with a real blast for the game-winner in a 4-2 Lightning win.

Once upon a time, they were the trio that was going to make the Lighting good for years and years. Instead, they only had Monday, and turned the Forum into Reunion Arena.

There was applause for Richards from a surprisingly small house when he was introduced in the first period.

Later, there was a video tribute on the big video screens over the ice. Everybody looked, including Vinny, Richy and Marty.

The Lightning entered the game struggling to find any sense of self after the carnage that began last season carried into this one. They're 12th in the Eastern Conference, miles from any playoff chance.

Richards and Dallas, after reaching the Western Conference finals last season, are also 12th, though not nearly as far off the playoff pace.

It was so strange seeing them on different sides in the same building. Lecavalier and Richards had been teammates since high school before they were split up in the name of progress.

"It's down to me and Marty," Vinny said.

Richards admitted to some nerves.

"It was a restless couple of nights," he said after Dallas' morning skate . "I'm excited to get back, It was weird coming in here this morning. It was weird coming here today, a new direction, a new time, a new locker room, but I'm very excited. Obviously it brings back a lot of good memories."

"How do you not think about it?" St. Louis asked.

He can still see Richards scoring the overtime game winner in Game 3 of the 2004 Cup playoff series in Montreal. He can still see Richy holding the Conn Smythe Trophy over his head at the Forum after being named Stanley Cup MVP. How do you not think about it?

"The Stanley Cup was the best day of my life," Richards said.

And how do you not think about what happened after that?

The Lightning never got a good, clean shot at repeating. There was the lockout that knocked them and the rest of hockey back a year. When it returned, there was a salary cap, and Bolts goalie Nik Khabibulin had bolted for Chicago.

A couple of first-round playoff losses after that, it was over.

One by one, sometimes more than one by one, the Lightning came apart.

They're spread all over the league and retirement. Coach John Tortorella, Johnny Torts, is doing TV. Remember the Big Four? Danny Boyle is tearing it up on the back line for the San Jose Sharks.

But Brad Richards came home Monday night.

It was a lot like when John Lynch came back to play the Bucs. And it might be the last chance for the Big Three, seeing as Vinny Lecavalier might be the next name to leave Tampa. Unless the NHL starts playing three teams at once, a Marty, Vinny, Richy reunion might be hard to come by.

You savor a night like Monday.

You savor that night five years ago, the Cup night.

Marty and Vinny and Richy talked about it at dinner.

"You want another one so bad," Richards said. "You think they're going to come along every couple of years. It's five years later and it's still a battle. It makes you appreciate it more."

Once upon a time, there seemed to be no limit on the Lightning's future. Even today, we wonder what might have been if this team had gotten anything close to decent goaltending the last three seasons. It took Richards being traded to Dallas for Mike Smith to get it. That's how the game works sometimes. The trade hasn't worked out badly for the Bolts, at least you think that until you see Richards back on the Forum ice.

Of course, he's the same 'good guy Brad' he was in Tampa, where he has kept his house (his parents are staying there now) and where he seriously plans to retire one day. He helps children's charities in Dallas, just as he did here, and even sets aside a suite for military families. Some things never change.

A lot of things do, but some things don't.

"It's amazing the bond you have with the guys you won it with. It always pops into your head when you see them," St. Louis said. "We were lucky to have been together long enough to win the ultimate prize. If we had known what was ahead of us, we might have enjoyed it even more."

"It's emotional," Richards said. "But that's life. It moves on."

So they went out and had their fun Monday. Lecavalier opened the scoring a minute and a half into the game on a breakaway off a feed from St. Louis. Twenty seconds later - 20 seconds - Richards answered with a wrister for a 1-1 tie. In the second period, he assisted on Dallas' go-ahead goal for a 2-1 lead.

But Lecavalier won it with five minutes left in the game, a powerful rocket from the blue line on the power play.

When Vinny is playing like Vinny can, well, it's something to see.

We used to say the same thing about Vinny, Marty and Richy. When one of them was on, look out. When they were all on, hand over the Cup. It was like that once upon a time in Tampa Bay.

It was about the memories all three of them and the rest of those Cup winners made some five years ago. They'll walk together forever.

But where'd everybody else go?

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