Was sitting here trying to read between some of the tea leaves on what will take place in the next few days to a week in regards to what is going to take place with the Tampa Bay defense.

I’ll start with what is going to take place for Thursday’s game against the New York Islanders. We all know that Paul Ranger will be returning to the lineup after receiving medical clearance on Tuesday to return to action. That leaves the Lightning with seven healthy defensemen - Andrej Meszaros, Matt Carle, Janne Niskala, Jamie Heward, Lukas Krajicek, Mike Lundin and Ranger. Somebody is going to have to sit as a healthy scratch against the Islanders.

In trying to judge how things progressed during practice on Wednesday, it looks like Lundin is the odd-man out.

During five-on-five drills the initial pairings were: Ranger and Meszaros, Carle and Niskala, Krajicek and Heward. Lundin was rotating into the Ranger-Meszaros pairing, swapping out first with Meszaros and then with Ranger. The other two pairings remained the same.

Lightning coach Barry Melrose said in his daily talk with the media that he hasn’t yet decided who will be out, and that may very well be accurate. And it would seem a bit odd that Lundin would be out when Melrose praised Lundin as being the team’s best defensemen in the two games he has played, even logging 22 minutes Saturday against Carolina. But if the rotation of the defensemen during practice is any indication, Melrose may have tipped his hand in this case.

Now, with the pending signing of Marek Malik following a physical, it brings up an entirely different situation to handle. Assuming Malik passes his physical it would give the Lightning 24 players and eight defensemen. That’s one too many players on the roster and it’s one more defenseman than most teams like to carry.

So, who’s the odd-man out in this case? Again, Melrose tipped his hand a bit this afternoon in talking with the media when he made a statement that “it looks like we are going to end up with six left-handed defensemen’’. Since Jaime Heward is the only right-handed shot on defense, it shows that there are no plans for Heward going forward at this point, even though Heward has been 20-plus minutes in two of the first three games. Does that mean Heward gets sent down to Norfolk? He is on a two-way contract and would be much cheaper to have in the minor leagues. But Heward is also an experienced guy, with close to 400 games of NHL experience, which would make him the second most experienced defenseman on the team once Malik comes on board. It’s always nice to have that kind of a vet around in case of injury and as a sounding board for some of the team’s younger defenseman. Heward said on Tuesday that he sort of held that mentoring type role with Washington working a lot with Mike Green.

So what would that mean for Lundin? Tampa Bay is obviously stockpiled right now with a ton of young defensemen in the system - Matt Smaby, Vladimir Mihalik, Ty Wishart, Andy Rogers - who are all playing down in the minors right now. Lundin would have to clear waivers if the team tried to send him down and I don’t think he would slip through the waiver wire. Could he be traded? It’s certainly a possibility, although if Lundin was being showcased I didn’t notice any scouts in the press box for Saturday’s game.

Could Tampa Bay make a move with a forward? That certainly is a possibility as well. David Koci is on a two-way contract and could be sent to the minors, although he’s stuck around this long and is somebody I get the feeling Melrose wants to keep around for games against teams like Anaheim or Philadelphia since Tampa Bay doesn’t have any other legitimate fighter on the roster.

Then there is the saga of Jason Ward, who is healthy enough to play, but remains on the red line at practice - aka the scratch line. Ward was on the bubble at the start of training camp but has stuck around to this point. His injured groin allowed the team to put him on injured reserve to start the season and came off as Ryan Craig went on injured reserve with the same injury. And though Craig won’t be ready for at least another week, when he does come back, another roster move is going to have to be made.

I don’t honestly know how to handicap this race accurately because it seems this team throws a curve ball every time you expect a fastball. But if I were to venture a guess, I would think it would be easy for Heward to be sent down to Norfolk as the first move once Malik is signed. When Craig is ready to return, well, I would say Koci goes down, but I said that before and he stuck around, so what do I know.

Funny moment after practice today involving Ryan Malone, who was scheduled to tape a public service announcement of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office for seat belt safety. Malone, however, took a high stick to the face that left him with a pair of cuts around his left eye. So Malone passed the buck on the PSA to rookie Steven Stamkos, who recorded the message.

After seeing Malone with the cuts around his eye, I remarked that it was still a little too early for Halloween. Malone replied in a straight face: “I usually like to get a couple of black eyes early in the season just to get that feeling back.’’ If you remember, Malone took a puck to the face during the Stanley Cup finals that broke his nose but didn’t keep him out of the game. Hey, maybe he wasn’t kidding when he was talking about the black eyes allowing him to get that feeling back!!!!!!!