Tampa Bay Lightning

Chris Lawrence scored a power play goal half-way through the third period to lead the Mississauga Ice Dogs to a 3-2 win over Erie Wednesday night. The goal was Lawrence's seventh of the year and was his 10th point in 11 games with the Ice Dogs since being traded from Sault Ste. Marie. Lawrence was named the game's first star.

Yesterday, we updated the Bolt Prospects.com prospects section to reflect our updated Midterm Rankings for the 2005-2006 season. Before the season our staff agreed that using the NHL Central Scouting Service's methodology of using tri-annual updated would offer our readers a far more up-to-date and precise accounting of the team's prospects' standing in the organization than the once-annual offerings of publications like The Hockey News and websites like Hockey's Future. On October 29th, 2005 we posted our Preliminary Rankings. The number in parentheses after each prospect listed in the Top-25 reflects their change in the rankings between then and now.

Regarding our criteria for deciding what constitutes a "prospect", any player under Lightning contract under 24 years of age at the start of the season who has played less than 41 games in any given NHL season to this point in his career is a prospect. Any prospect over 24 years of age who has played less than 41 NHL games in his career will be listed by Bolt Prospects as an "overage prospect". Among the players we currently list as overage prospects are, for instance, G Brian Eklund, RW Norm Milley and G Fredrik Norrena.

With that out of the way, here are Bolt Prospects 2005-2006 Midterm Rankings:

According to 620 WDAE, the Tampa Bay Lightning have waived their team captain, left wing Dave Andreychuk. If Andreychuk clears waivers he is expected to be assigned to Springfield of the AHL in what amounts to a paper transaction. The team and Andreychuk have reached an agreement whereby Andreychuk does not have to report to Springfield and the Lightning will allow him to collect the remainder of his one-way contract without penalty. There are no plans to name a new captain in the immediate future.

The implosion of youthful Lada Togliatti appears to be on in full force. Lada fell 4-1 today to Spartak Moscow as Vasily Koshechkin allowed 3 goals before Spartak added an empty net goal in the third. Koshechkin's record slides to 14-9-3 on the year.

Time for Jay Feaster to make a move. This tail spin is not going to end without a change in the composition of this roster.

TB-3
BOS-6

Special thanks to John Grahame and the Lightning defense for making Milan Jurcina look like Wayne Gretzky. And while we're at it, has anyone found Brad Richards yet? I realize as the chosen son he's immune to the criticism that most of the other players o the team face, but he hasn't had a point in six games. If Vinny Lecavalier goes pointless in six games this fan base starts looking for lumber to make a good crucifix. Its time for every single player on this team to take responsibility for what's happening on the ice right now. And the ones that won't or are dillusional enough to think what's happening right now will pass without some serious changes in approach need to be shown the door.

Evgeny Artyukhin, as a silver lining, had a goal and an assist in the game. In 11:20 he had 2 shots on goal, 3 hits and 2 blocked shots. Unfortunately he was on the ice for two Boston goals and finished even. Paul Ranger was also even in 12:34 of ice time with 1 shot, 2 hits and 3 blocked shots. Ryan Craig, in what may be a validation of my worst fears about his skating potentially making him a defensive liability, was -5 in 13:40 of ice time.

Details of the travesty on NHL.com.