Lightning mailbag, Thursday edition (plus an Adam Oates update)

Posted Sep 10, 2009 by Erik Erlendsson

Updated Sep 10, 2009 at 11:16 PM

All right, so I didn’t get this out earlier in the day as I had hoped, but there are greater forces are work conspiring against me, and not all of them are being kind. So I’ll probably be a bit short with this one tonight wich comes from “Thunderbug’’ via the blog comment section:

Any way you can lay out the goaltender situation beyond what has been printed? What’s the real ‘scoop’ on Smitty? What-if he can’t play this season? How solid is Nitty? What would the team options be if Smitty doesn’t play? What are the best lines on paper right now for the Bolts? What happens if Koules gets control of the team? Did he really want to take payroll down to $42M this year?

I’ll start with the “scoop’’ on Mike Smith, and really, there is nothing secretive going on with him. About the only thing that maybe hasn’t been totally brought to light is a situation that he has been having with his neck that actually stems back to a concussion he had while playing for Dallas earlier in his career. In effect, he suffered from a case of whiplash that he wasn’t aware he was suffering from. He worked with a specialist over the summer that diagnosed the problem and has been doing exercises with him to alleviate the issue. Smith told me at Fan Fest that his neck has been responding to the treatment. Whether that has anything to do with the concussion he suffered last year is not known.

But the bottom line is everybody on the team is pleased with the progress Smith has made since April and judging from conversations I’ve held with Smith and watching him during the precamp scrimmages that are going on, he doesn’t seem to be showing any kind of effects. Now, he’s not at full speed and not facing high slap shots as the guys tend to keep the shots low during these situations, but he looks to be moving around well in the crease and tracking things OK for not having been in game action since January. I know Rick Tocchet is counting on Smith to be his No. 1 goaltender, but it will obviously be something to monitor especially the first time he takes a hard slapper off his helmet.

As far as Niittymaki, I guess you can only go off his track record with the Flyers and he put up some good numbers even though he never really claimed a No. 1 spot. Provided Smith stays healthy, Niittymaki is a solid guy they can count on to play some stretches of games if he has to, but I’m not sure he’s somebody that can play 50 or 60 games, especially considering his hip history.

If Smith goes down, I think the team would try to find a veteran netminder to share the load with Niittymaki since as of right now Riku Helenius is No. 3 on the depth chart and Dustin Tokarski.

As far as the lines, it’s tough to determine that right now. I would think that Malone-Stamkos-St. Louis stay together at the start of the season with Alex Tanguay and Vinny Lecavalier forming a French connection line with Stephane Veilleux. We know that Jeff Halpern is going to center the third line. From there, it’s competition that will include Ryan Craig, Todd Fedoruk, Drew Miller, Adam Hall, Steve Downie, Martins Karsums, Lauri Tukonen, Zenon Konopka, Brandon Bochenski and now you have to throw tryout invitee Brett McLean and Radek Smolenak to the list of guys who could compete for spots on the lower lines. It will be interesting to see how things shake out in camp.

In terms of the ownership situation, I’m not convinced Koules would have pared down to the salary cap floor. I know there was some speculation on that, but I also know he said that the open house in May that there was no set salary range the team was working with and he was also quoted at the NHL combine that the team would operate around $49 million, which is about where it looks like they will end up with their actual cash payroll, excluding bonuses. There is a formula in revenue sharing that pays money back to teams that are below the midrange of the cap, which is something they did to help cut down the losses last year, and something they will look to try an attain again this season if they look like they are not going to make the playoffs and recoup some losses with playoff ticket sales. How it all shakes down, we’ll just have to wait and see.

On a completely different note, spoke to Tocchet today in regards to Adam Oates, who is in town and will help out at training camp, mainly with the power play. While nothing is pending and Tocchet said Oates is here basically as a favor to Tocchet, there is a chance it could turn into more than a friend helping out. According to Tocchet, Oates wants to get back involved with the game and this is a bit of an introduction to give Oates a taste of what to expect. My hunch tells me that Oates will be around for more than just training camp.