Slumping Meszaros a healthy scratch for Lightning tonight

The Tampa Bay Lightning will sit one of their perceived core players tonight against New Jersey as defenseman Andrej Meszaros is set to be a healthy scratch.

"He's put himself in this position as he hasn't played well," Lightning coach Rick Tocchet said. "Maybe a month ago there were a couple of games where he was starting to come back, but I think with him we need to take a couple of steps back to get him going a step forward."

Meszaros was acquired from Ottawa before the start of the 2008-09 season in exchange for defensemen Filip Kuba and Alex Picard, along with a first-round draft pick original acquired from San Jose in the trade that sent defenseman Dan Boyle to the Sharks.

Meszaros was then signed to a six-year deal and expected to be a core player.

But after a disappointing season last year that ended in March when he underwent shoulder surgery, Meszaros enters tonight's game with a team-worst minus-13 rating this season while contributing just three goals and eight points.

Meszaros, 24, who was recently named to the Slovakian Olympic team, said for whatever reason his confidence is lacking right now and he is caught between using his instincts and over-thinking.

"This has never happened to me before and it's obviously disappointing," Meszaraos said. "But on the other hand, I know I haven't been playing all that well, so I guess I deserve that.

"But I just want to try to think positive, work hard in practice, get my confidence back by doing the right things in practice and work extra hard, and hopefully it will come. It's not the end of the world, but obviously I want to help the team to win every game."

Meszaros had a string of 22 consecutive games in which he logged 20 or more minutes from Nov. 7 to Dec. 23. But in the past five games, he's played more than 16 minutes just once. With no points in nine games and a minus-7 rating in the past 11 games, Tocchet felt it was time for Meszaros to watch a game in order to help get him back on track.

"He'll get a night off, get in a good skate and watching and realizing that we need more good puck decisions from him, more focus," Tocchet said. "We're counting on him to be a big defenseman for us, and the mandate is now. We have to start pushing here to get over that .500 level."

With Meszaros out of the lineup, Matt Walker will return for the first time since suffering an injury on Dec. 17 in St. Louis.