Craig, Ryan

Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune is reporting that the Tampa Bay Lightning has tendered qualifying offers to restricted free agents Ryan Craig, Justin Fletcher, and Jay Rosehill, thus retaining the club's rights on these players.

Qualifying offers were not tendered to former second round pick Mike Egener, goaltender and former third rounder Jonathan Boutin, Zbynek Hrdel, Marek Kvapil, Ryan Munce, and recently acquired defenseman Mario Scalzo Jr., making them unrestricted free agents. Kvapil and Scalzo, along with Stanislav Lascek, had already signed contracts to play with European teams next season.

For more information, including news of a possible new contract for Vincent Lecavalier and Marc Denis' buyout, click here.

What gives HF? Seriously.

Look, we're long past the point of expecting anything resembling objectivity considering one of your top writers was once quoted as claiming Blair Jones was "trash" because he was a 4th round pick, but can you guys at least acknowledge that Mike Lundin (another 4th round pick, so I guess that makes him "trash" too) has made the NHL? Is that really too much to ask?

On Sunday, the Lightning sent defenseman Dan Jancevski back down to Norfolk of the AHL. Today, as a response to the knee injury Ryan Craig suffered against New Jersey, the team has recalled center Craig MacDonald.

Norfolk embarks on a 4 game in 5 night road trip on Wednesday against Albany.

Back to .500 with a chance to pull within at least 4 points in the division next week.

TB-5
WAS-2

Johan Holmqvist stopped 23 of 25 shots faced in the win.

First Period
NO SCORING

Second Period
Tampa Bay 12:30, Filip Kuba 2 (power play) (Michel Ouellet, Vincent Lecavalier)
Washington 18:20, Alexander Ovechkin 11 (Mike Green, Tom Poti)

Third Period
Tampa Bay 1:29, Vaclav Prospal 11 (Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis)
Tampa Bay 2:27, Martin St. Louis 5 (Vaclav Prospal, Brad Lukowich)
Tampa Bay 12:22, Ryan Craig 1 (power play) (Vaclav Prospal, Chris Gratton)
Washington 15:26, Tomas Fleischmann 4 (Tom Poti, Viktor Kozlov)
Tampa Bay 19:39, Paul Ranger 2 (empty net) (Brad Richards)

Ryan Craig is back!

HER-3
NOR-5

Jonathan Boutin stopped 36 of 39 shots faced in the win. The more work he gets, the better he plays.

First Period
HER Motzko, (2) (McNeill, Pollock), 12:05 (PP)
NOR Lampman, (2) (Jones, Wanvig), 13:52 (PP)
NOR Milley, (2) (Stewart), 14:32

Second Period
HER Motzko, (3) (Robitaille, Pokulok), 10:36
HER Motzko, (4) (Klepis, Potulny), 14:24 (PP)

Third Period
NOR Keller, (1) (Mihalik, Jancevski), 8:14 (PP)
NOR Craig, (1) (Lawrence, Schneider), 11:23
NOR Rooneem, (1) (Craig, Jancevski), 18:52 (PP) [/b]

Craig and Norm Milley were the first and third stars of the game, respectively.

Justin Keller finally breaks through for his first goal of the season. At least 19 more of those would be nice.

Game sheet from TheAHL.com.