Morning skate update vs. Boston (and a change on D)

Posted Dec 4, 2008 by Erik Erlendsson

Updated Dec 4, 2008 at 12:26 PM

Good morning. It’s a true chamber of commerce day with highs in the 70’s today. (That’s for the family I still have in the Boston area

Not a whole lot of news coming out this morning. Matt Smaby is in the building and it looks like he’s in tonight judging by the sly smile he had on his face this morning when I talked to him about the frequent flier miles he’s not getting credit for this week. He flew from Norfolk to Tampa on Thursday, flew with the team to Minneapolis, from Minny to Norfolk on Saturday and then from Albany to Tampa last night. That’s a lot of air miles.

Now, assuming Smaby is in - and that’s a safe assumption - it was hard to figure out who’s out. Smaby’s equipment didn’t show up until this morning, so he got on the ice around the time everybody else was coming off. Lightning interim coach Rick Tocchet didn’t say in his morning meeting with the media who was going to be out. But if I were going to offer an educated guess on what defenseman won’t play, I’d say that Mike Lundin might get a game up in the press box. His ice time has diminished recently - not by large margins - but enough to think his game has dipped.

We’ll see what happens tonight.

As far as the forwards, Tocchet did mention that Radim Vrbata has a bit of a groin issue (possibly from the hard skate he had on Tuesday?), but I don’t think it would have mattered much. Vrbata skated today and yesterday. Also, Evgeny Artyukhin looks to be out after a rough game on Tuesday, particularly a couple of bad penalties.

Ryan Craig looks like he’ll be back in the lineup.

Here’s hoping you have a sunny and warm Thursday!