Lightning are rested, but have they developed rust over the bye week

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
February 17, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. – Gassers. Conditioning drills. Extra skating for allowing goals.

The Lightning returned to practice on Friday following five days off, hoping the extra skating gets the legs loose as they prepare to return to the grinding scheduled of the NHL season that resumes on Saturday in Dallas (8 p.m. EST, Fox Sports Sun, 970-AM).

But finding their legs won’t come easy as the season has already shown that teams emerging from their bye week have struggled in the first game back, posting a 3-9-2 record through Friday, with Los Angeles the latest to falter in its return, allowing two goals in the opening five minutes to Arizona in a 5-3 loss while Carolina lost in overtime at home to Colorado Friday night.

Being off the ice for two days can take a toll on a hockey team. Being off the ice for five days is unprecedented, at least until earlier this season as teams started to go through the process of dealing with the bye week.

Most haven’t dealt with it well.

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To date, only Pittsburgh, Arizona and Toronto have won coming out of their mandated time off.

”We’ve seen it now, so we are aware of it,’’ Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop said. “Hopefully it gives you a little bit more of a spark to be ready coming out of the break instead of trying to feel your way out.’’

It’s not a simple process and it’s easy to suggest that because a small precedent has been established by other teams, putting that bit of understanding to practice so it doesn’t affect you is a different story.

Players did their best to try to combat the time off through active rest. Bishop said he did a lot of walking. Others did high-tempo workouts in the gym or other methods. Anything but sitting around in the Lazy-Boy recliner for four days.

”I was active for sure,’’ defenseman Jason Garrison said. “At my age, you have to maintain a little bit of exercise for sure. Sometimes you get those days off around Christmas or the All-Star break, usually it’s two or three days off and you can tell when you come back maybe your lungs aren’t there but your body feels good. This is a little bit longer, a little bit different so you have to maintain a little bit more exercise. But the rest was good, I just can’t take too much of it.’’

For defenseman Victor Hedman, the rest was certainly welcome.

When the NHL Player’s Association worked with the league to negotiate in the bye week, it had players such as Hedman in mind. With the World Cup of Hockey this season, Hedman has been going strong since early September when he attended training camp with Team Sweden. Then because he was selected to participate in the NHL All-Star game, along with teammate Nikita Kucherov who also participated in the World Cup, there was a cross-country trip from Tampa to Los Angeles for All-Star weekend and then a return trip back to Tampa.

That didn’t offer much time to get rest in the middle of the grind of an NHL season.

”It’s been a long year,’’ Hedman said. “From the start we’ve had a tough season, there’s no question about that, so to get a couple of days to get your mind away from the game is good. I can only speak for myself but I think it’s good to have the end that we had going 3-0-1 (in the four games before the break) and having good success. For me to get a few days off it was very nice.’’

Now it’s important for the Lightning to take that rest and channel it in to the stretch of the final 26 games of the season to try to crawl out of the hole that’s been dug to this point. A hole that could have been much deeper than it is, sitting just six points out of a playoff spot, despite being idle for a week.

”All you can do here is look after the two points in front of you that night and we can look back and say how far down the standings did we fall being away for these five days and it actually wasn’t all that bad,’’ Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Now we are through this break and it’s time to start climbing the ladder again. I think the guys know that.’’

They are aware.

”We’re on the outside looking in right now so we don’t have a cushion going back into this,’’ Hedman said. “We’ve got to be ready to go from the start. We have to approach this game-by-game, we playing a lot of good teams and they are in the same boat as we are – either trying to make a push or keep teams behind them. We’re a team that’s chasing and we can’t look at that record (of teams coming out of their break) because we haven’t been part of that record.’’

NOTE: Tyler Johnson return to practice and is expected to be ready to return after missing the past two games with an undisclosed injury. … RW Gabriel Dumont was officially recalled from Syracuse of the American Hockey League and practiced on Friday. … Lines during practice were:

Vladislav Namestnikov-Tyler Johnson-Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn-Brayden Point-Jonathan Drouin

Ondrej Palat-Valtteri Filppula-Brian Boyle

Gabriel Dumont-Cedric Paquette-J.T. Brown
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