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The Tampa Bay Lightning watched with interest Tuesday as the trade deadline brought about 24 deals involving 46 players. As some clubs went hog-wild, the Bolts quietly claimed defenseman Janne Laukkanen off waivers from the New York Rangers and acquired 37-year-old defenseman Marc Bergevin from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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CHIRPIN'
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"I was a little nervous. And my worst fears happened ... I took a shot and hit the goalie in the head. It wasn't Patrick (Lalime). It was the other guy. I don't even know his name yet."
-- New Senators' forward Bryan Smolinski on his first practice with Ottawa, in which his shot struck Martin Prusek.
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THE NUMBER
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Goals Bruins forward Martin Lapointe scored against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night. The hat trick, the second of his career, were the first goals he'd scored in 18 games and gave him just five for the season.
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WHO'S HOT
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After scoring in 12 straight games, with eight goals and five assists in that span, New Jersey forward Jeff Friesen had his streak stopped against Atlanta on Tuesday. He got right back on track Thursday with an assist against Boston.
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WHO'S NOT
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New Jersey forward Patrik Elias scored Thursday against the Bruins, giving him just his second goal in 15 games.
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Small transactions in the scheme of things, but a bold statement about the club's future.
In past years, as the deadline approached, general manager Jay Feaster was never lonely. He heard from plenty of other GMs "wanting to know what they could pick off the carcass," Feaster said.
For only the second time in the franchise's 11 years -- and the first time since 1995-96 -- the Lightning are poised to go to the postseason.
The club has been through its share of trials and tribulations. It has endured ownership changes, a revolving door of front-office personnel and an evolving roster. It has come out on the other side and has developed a strong goaltending tandem, has nurtured young talent and has added character veterans who could lead Tampa Bay a lot farther than anyone predicted back in September.
"Sports Illustrated picked us (to finish) 30th out of 30," Feaster said. "I don't believe there was any publication that had us higher than 11th in the East. That's where we topped out. The consensus was 12th. For us to get in and make it for only the second time in 11 years, that is very, very significant. And yet, the great part about this season is we have raised expectations in this community, we've raised expectations in our locker room and yeah, we do care where we finish. We want to win the division. This team is an example of what happens when you get everybody from ownership to management to coaches to players to staff, everybody on the same page, and that's what has been fun about this year."
Feaster reflected about the key decisions and factors that have led the Lightning to this point:
Vincent Lecavalier. The talented center had the worst of all seasons last year -- enduring a holdout and losing the team captaincy. He more than made up for it this year with a career season.
"I give Vinny all the credit in the world," Feaster said. "I think if he had not decided that he was going to put everything that happened behind him and start with a clean page, we wouldn't have the success we're having as a team and he certainly wouldn't be having a career year. He worked very, very hard in the offseason. He worked on his one-timers, he worked on improving his faceoff percentage, he worked on his conditioning, he worked on his diet, he went out and hired a nutritionist and a cook. He spent a lot of time and resources during the offseason getting ready for this season. To his credit and showing the maturity he has, he really did put last year behind him. We had some honest conversations, myself with Vinny, (coach John Tortorella) with Vinny and myself with John. We made sure everybody understood that Vinny wasn't going to go anywhere and that neither was John. It was so important we got everybody on the same page."
Feaster said he blames himself for part of what went wrong with Lecavalier last year. Instead of management notifying Lecavalier of the big decisions, they left it to Tortorella.
"The first thing that happened was we decided over the summer that we were going to take the pressure of that captaincy away," he said. "We were bringing in Dave Andreychuk and Tim Taylor and we wanted to do it the right way and give him the opportunity to grow into that. We were going to wait (to tell him) until camp starts. Then, he holds out. Even when he finally signs his contract, it wasn't the contract he wanted, so he had the disappointment of that and the first thing he's hit with is, 'By the way, you're not going to be our captain.' But instead of us communicating that to him as management, that ended up falling to John Tortorella. We made the decision collectively, but Torts was the messenger. (When he signed,) he wanted to play in second game against the Panthers at home. Collectively, we decided that wasn't the right decision because of how much time he missed. He hadn't even had a practice with them. We were going to be leaving on a road trip out West and he could practice with us, we'd play him out there and he'd debut on the road with us. He's champing at the bit to play and who has to tell him he's not going to play? John Tortorella."
Then came the rampant trade rumors.
"Instead of us saying, 'Forget about it. That's not why we signed him to a four-year deal,' -- which was the richest for a guy coming out of the entry level. Instead of doing that, we opened up the bidding process and we allowed him to develop a short-timer's mentality," said Feaster. "He's able to look at John Tortorella and say, 'You can pound sand because I'll be out of here soon.' In a lot of ways, we really set John up as the bad guy, and it wasn't fair to John and it wasn't fair to Vinny.
"The way we have success is for Vinny to be a superstar, to be the best player he can be. Vinny truly understands that John isn't trying to oppress him or keep him down, he's trying to get him to be the best team player he can be."
The Lecavalier sweepstakes is one of the reasons why Rick Dudley is now the GM of the Florida Panthers. A deal for Lecavalier was vetoed by ownership, and Feaster said that led to a parting of the ways.
"That was the beginning of the end," he said. "Up until that time, Rick and I had a very positive relationship. I didn't agree with the move. That was the beginning of the end."
Or, as it turned out, the end of the beginning.
Their relatively unknown defense: "It's not as though it's a blue line that strikes fear into the hearts of people, but it's a blue line that gets the job done," Feaster said. "They play the Craig Ramsay way. He has them playing the way we want them to play. It's not as if you say, 'That guy's a star.' It's how we play as a whole. I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
The value of Dave Andreychuk: "He picked us up last year and carried us on his back, and actually enabled us to play some meaningful hockey games in the month of March,'' Feaster said. "It was a no-brainer (to name him captain).
He's just a great leader. He leads by example on the ice. Last year, we had so many injuries that after the Olympic break he switched from left wing to center and still potted his 20. He's a guy who has made all the players around him better because they're able to watch him prepare and watch how he conducts himself as a professional. He has raised the level of professionalism in that locker room."
The acquisition of goalie John Grahame: "John Grahame came in at a time for us and saved our season," Feaster said. "(Nikolai Khabibulin) was really struggling and John Grahame came in and won some huge games against really quality opponents. He gave us five wins that kept us in the hunt. What we felt he was, was clearly an upgrade over what we had. He was an upgrade for us over Kevin Hodson. Jeff Reese, our goaltending coach, watched eight or 10 tapes of John before we did the deal. He really felt confident. We viewed him as a guy who could come in and give us quality starts and take some of the pressure off Nik. John Tortorella made the comment before the season started that he truly felt we had to pick up 16-18 points from our backup goaltender this season if we were going to be in the hunt. Grahame came in and, right off the bat, got five wins for us and a couple of ties. Hodson had one (point)."
The playoff inexperience factor: "It's actually kind of an interesting blend," Feaster said. "We have a lot of guys who have not been in or who have not been that far. And yet, at the same time, we do have some guys who have been through the wars. We have a player in Chris Dingman who has won a Stanley Cup with Colorado, and Brad Lukowich won a Stanley Cup in Dallas, and Tim Taylor won one with the Wings. Even a young guy like Ruslan Fedotenko, who knows what his experience was with Philly, the expectations and then getting knocked out in the first round. And Andre Roy, who has been there with Ottawa. The younger guys are looking to the Andreychuks and Taylors and some of the older guys and talking about their experiences and what it takes to get there and have success. It's a much better blend than it was a few years ago."
The contribution of coach John Tortorella: "It's just huge," said Feaster. "It's our entire coaching staff. I call them college professors. Every single day they're teaching. They recognized that from day one. (Former coach) Steve Ludzik came from a setting with the Vipers where he had so many experienced minor-league veteran players. He didn't have to teach them a lot. He could implement systems, they could go play and they were very, very successful. He got here to Tampa, which at the time was the youngest team in the league, and he didn't realize that these guys didn't know as much as the guys he left in Detroit. That's the thing John Tortorella understood from the beginning. We had to do it by making what we had better, and this staff has done a phenomenal job."
Depth chart
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The celebration surrounding the return of forward Doug Gilmour to Toronto was short-lived when Gilmour injured his left knee in Thursday's game against Calgary. If it's not serious and he can return to action, the wildly popular ex-captain won't be expected to do what he did in his first stint with the Maple Leafs, when he put together back-to-back 100-point seasons in 1992-93 and 1993-94 and twice led the team to the Western Conference championship. "He's not as fast (a skater as he once was) but he still has that great competitive instinct," coach/GM Pat Quinn said of Gilmour, who turns 40 in June. "There are areas of the game that, as you get older, go away from you. But guys like Dougie find ways to compensate. People remember him from here and also from Toronto logging 30, 28 minutes, just incredible amounts of time. That's not there anymore." In fact, Gilmour was playing so much in the postseason and lost so much weight on his already slender frame, that a media outlet actually had a "Feed Doug" campaign. Pasta recipes came out of the woodwork.
The Senators' 3-2 overtime win over the Rangers on Thursday was their 27th victory at home this year, eclipsing the franchise record set in 2000-01 (26-7-5-3).
Right after the trade of Anson Carter to the Rangers was announced on Tuesday, Carter looked less than thrilled during interviews, although he said all the right things. After a day to reflect, he said he's excited to be on Broadway, which marks the fourth trade of his career. "I always look at the glass being half full," Carter said. "Every time I was traded, it was always different circumstances. When I went to Boston (from Washington), it was because they were in the process of rebuilding. When I went to Edmonton, I was having contract problems with the Bruins and the trade was done from the business side. And in Edmonton, my contract was up again and they want to get younger."
Watching what is happening to the Penguins is like watching highlights of a bad accident -- it makes you sick but you can't take your eyes off it. When Alexei Kovalev was shipped to the Rangers in a salary dump, the Penguins tried to put a positive spin on it. But when GM Craig Patrick essentially cleaned house on deadline day, the cut was so deep that the pain was felt around the league. "We're in a survival mode," said Patrick. "It's been slowly eating away at us until we're finally here. I've been thinking every year, 'This is going to be the year we can't do it anymore.' So, here we are."
The Florida Panthers' playoff hopes were pretty well dashed after a 4-0 loss to Montreal on Wednesday, which extended the club's number of consecutive home losses to 10 -- a franchise record. Heading into the weekend, the team had more than twice as many wins on the road (15) than at home (seven).
There has been precious little for the Hurricanes to get excited about this season, but many folks around the team were impressed with the debut of Radim Vrbata, a flashy right wing who was acquired from Colorado in exchange for Bates Battaglia. Vrbata scored the tying goal for his new club with 9.6 seconds left in regulation and the team went on to beat Buffalo 3-2 in overtime Wednesday. "This guy's an exciting player to watch," said coach Paul Maurice.
The Thrashers are using the remaining games to audition young talent for next season. One of their top prospects is 21-year-old defenseman Garnet Exelby, who made his NHL debut on Tuesday in Atlanta's 3-2 win over New Jersey. "We're going to give him a good shot," said coach Bob Hartley. "The most important thing is to be a reliable defenseman. I don't believe in tough defensemen who will go and kill someone in the corner and allow a scoring chance in front of the net. The equation doesn't work that way."
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Boston Globe is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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