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From Center Ice - Erik Erlendsson

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


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 grin

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!

Send Us Your Comments

Posted by  dale, fl on 12/04  at  07:31 PM

I really like Lundin, he should be playing on the third set of d, 20 plus minutes a night isn’t good. To bad we traded away our first 2 pairings.


Posted by  MOS0352, South Tampa on 12/04  at  05:03 PM

Isn’t Malik injured anyway? Lets see what Smaby can do to get things stirred up. Can’t be any worse than what we have seen so far.


Posted by  Andrzej,  on 12/04  at  03:43 PM

Hire Laviolette as a coach before it is too late.


Posted by  vickie, tampa on 12/04  at  01:29 PM

it shouldn’t be lundin who is out. It should be Malik. He stinks and he’s so lazy.


Posted by  LoveLightningHockey, Clearwater on 12/04  at  12:41 PM

welcome back Smaby - hope you stay a while - and talking about how nice the weather is does not help the moods of us who can not get out to enjoy it.  Let’s hope some how some way the hockey gods send a win our way tonight


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Erik Erlendsson covers the Tampa Bay Lightning for The Tampa Tribune.


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