Malone/Artyukhin update

[jaydeedub]

Injury updates: left wing Ryan Malone did not skate and still is listed as day to day with what the team is calling a lower-body injury. ... Right wing Evgeny Artyukhin (groin) skated.



That was at the end of DC's article of Melrose not at practice... (http://blogs.tampabay.com/lightning/2008/11/melrose-takes-t.html)

Apparently, Melrose called a meeting with the players, who were dressing for practice at the BankAtlantic Center and addressed two straight games of terrible first periods, and especially Monday night's effort that saw Tampa Bay fall behind 3-0 to the Capitals in what turned into a 4-2 loss.

Goaltender Olie Kolzig said Melrose gave the players "a good scolding," and decided to skip practice to give everyone a break.

"Maybe he felt it was just time," Kolzig said. "Maybe he just wants to get away from his bratty kids right now, and let us figure it out on our own. We got a pretty good scolding and tomorrow is another day. Just a day to get away, I guess."

[Sotnos]

This new rule about extra-vague injury reports is annoying. Gives you no idea of how serious it is.

Sorry to chop this out of the other thread, but just make a new thread for Bolts stuff please (or someone else probably will). :)

[Bolthed]

There's a joke in there somewhere about Melrose skipping practice. I get the sense that he's more of a motivator/figurehead type of coach and perhaps the growing pains are the result of Tocchet having more responsibility than ever and Walz being a newbie.

Overall, I love the team concept of an offensively talented and deep roster being truly physical and hard to play against (as opposed to the old "sandpaper" lip service we used to get). I think it's the right style of play for today's NHL - goals n' grit. But for some players, it's not their natural instinct. That'll take time, but I'm cautiously optimistic about our forwards. The goaltending has been a pleasant surprise. But the defense, while it hasn't been putrid collectively, is disappointing. I expect more from Meszaros and Ranger than just being solid in the defensive zone. Maybe they're not ready for that higher level? Maybe each guy is playing one spot higher than he should (which means that all we're missing is Chris Pronger!). But what I do know is that we need more dynamic offense from our defense. If they just play solid positionally, play physical along the walls and in front of our net but do little more than wait at the point in the offensive zone ... that just puts the entire burden of creative offense on our forwards, and we are seeing the result (a lot of cycling to nowhere and, at other times, a lot of standing around and letting the other team get easy breakouts). This team has GOT to get aggressive - in more ways than one.

[jaydeedub]

There's a joke in there somewhere about Melrose skipping practice. I get the sense that he's more of a motivator/figurehead type of coach and perhaps the growing pains are the result of Tocchet having more responsibility than ever and Walz being a newbie.



That's how it looked at training camp. Tocchet and Raeder ran most of the practices, and Melrose kind of would stand in the middle or the ice watching, yelling out some stuff here and there.
Walz kind of just hung around and helped out. I didn't even notice him for a while until my buddy pointed him out. But that was months ago so who knows now how it's being run.

[Thunderchief]

.... But what I do know is that we need more dynamic offense from our defense. .

Now I wonder where (or who) we could get someone like that?

Shame we don't have someone that fits that description on the team.