Bolts shuffle lines to try to help Lecavalier

Seven games into the season, it appears the Lightning already have entered a potentially critical crossroads.

Tampa Bay entered this season with high expectations, at least by recent standards. Nobody was talking Stanley Cup and the word playoffs were mentioned only in whispers. But improvements were expected, if not demanded, from a revamped roster.

After two lackluster efforts on the road last week, however, Tampa Bay looks too much like last year's team that finished with a league-low 24 victories and not enough like a team that will compete for a playoff spot.

On Thursday in Ottawa, a turnover led to an early goal and the Lightning went flat in a 7-1 loss. On Saturday in Pittsburgh, the Penguins got an early power-play goal and the Lightning offense went into hibernation. Had the defending Stanley Cup champions decided to wake-up themselves, a 4-1 loss could have been more lopsided.

"It's unacceptable for the group of guys we have here and with the amount of talent we have on this team to have those two back-to-back efforts," second-year center Steven Stamkos said. "We just can't let last year creep into this equation. We're a better team."

During practice Sunday, line combinations were shuffled around by Coach Rick Tocchet, who broke up the successful trio of Stamkos between Ryan Malone and Marty St. Louis. That line has accounted for 13 of the team's 17 goals.

"We had one or two goals in the last few games. We're trending down. We're not playing well and we have guys struggling," Tocchet said. "Obviously I have to try to find a way to get Vinny (Lecavalier, who is still looking for his first goal) out of this slump. Maybe Marty can help him. But I still don't want to compromise what we're trying to do here."

Stamkos was paired with Malone and Steve Downie, St. Louis was switched to play with Lecavalier and rookie James Wright, while free-agent acquisition Alex Tanguay was moved to the third line with Jeff Halpern and Drew Miller.

The line shuffles were made, in large part, to try to light a spark under Lecavalier, reuniting him with St. Louis.

In a different move intended to light a spark under the entire locker room, General Manager Brian Lawton laid into the team with stern words that could be heard from around the corner.

The season is 3 weeks old and already the threats of changes have been made. But was this the right time for such statements? Was this the right delivery?

Yes. You want to ensure that the season doesn't slip away even before you start to get into the meat of the schedule. Yes, messages need to be sent to make certain bad habits don't begin to develop.

But there is a certain risk in making this kind of a move so early in the season because if the team doesn't respond the right way to Lawton's message, what happens next?

The last Lightning official who put it all on the line in the first month of the season was fired two games after issuing such a challenge.

In for a fight

Former Lightning LW John Tucker is scheduled today to undergo surgery for throat cancer. Tucker was an original member of the Lightning and still holds the franchise record for shots on goal in a game with 14 against San Jose in December 1992.

Tucker, 45, spent four seasons with the Lightning, appearing in 253 games with 49 goals and 82 assists. A former teammate and roommate of Dave Andreychuk while the two were in Buffalo, Tucker was also part of the first team in franchise history to qualify for the playoffs, appearing in two games during a first-round defeat to the Philadelphia Flyers in 1995.