With the Norfolk Admirals on break until after Christmas (Dec 26th to be exact), the Lightning have called up goalie Cedrick Desjardins as per Lightning press release.

"With Norfolk having a week off we thought it was a good opportunity to have Cedrick join us for a few days to work with Frantz Jean and practice with our team,” Yzerman said. “Whether he sees any playing time will be Guy Boucher’s decision."

Cristodero says that Desjardins is not expected to play, but it up with the team just to soak in the NHL atmosphere and get some time in with goaltending coach Frantz Jean. no comments

Enemy Blog: SBN's Die by the Blade

Record: Lightning (17-10-4) Sabres (13-15-4)

Game time: 7:30pm EST on CW44 and on the radio at 620 WDAE

Not much to say tonight going into this game. It's just another game on the schedule against another team in the East. Maybe I just feel this way because it's Buffalo. The Sabres lost last night to the Panthers and come in to Tampa for their second game against the Lightning this year. Even though Nate Thompson didn't practice the other day from the knee-on-knee hit, he is expected to play tonight.

Who else is expected to start tonight? Mike Smith in net. The last time he had consecutive starts was back in late November (20th -26th where he had four consecutive starts).

Line-up Notes:

• Mike Smith will get the start in goal
• Steve Downie is out with an ankle sprain
• Shaeon Morrisson is out with a concussion for the Sabres

Your pre-game reading links:

• Official Lightning preview
• Raw Charge's game preview
• PHT readers think that the Lightning make the most sense for Nabokov
• Shaone Morrison who won't be playing tonight because of a concussion, made a small step to his return to the ice by taking part in the Sabres' morning skate yesterday
• In response to Thompson's comments Eric boulton in the AJC asks "Who is Nate Thompson?"

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With a two day break between games, Nate Thompson took today to blast Eric Boulton for a knee on knee hit during Wednesday's game.

"It was awful," Thompson said Thursday after watching a replay. "I mean, I'm by the guy. You can see on the replay he purposefully puts his knee out and barely misses with an elbow, too. I'm not really too surprised. Eric Boulton, not the best player in the world. He's got to compensate for sticking his knee out when I'm by him with 10 seconds left in the game."

Love how he called Boulton "not the best player in the world". Thompson didn't practice with the team today taking a maintenance day with Coach Boucher says that his knee is hyper-extended, but Thompson said he's be good to go for Saturday's game.

Other news:

• Steve Yzerman had an 'informational talk' with Evgeni Nabokov's agent the other day
• Boucher tells Smith and Ellis to "not read the papers" with all the Nabokov talk going on
• The Lightning reassigned Johan Harju to Nofolk
• Compared to last season, home attendance for Lightning games are up. See what winning will do for a team's attendance record in Tampa?
• Non Lightning, but because Ilya Bryzgalov came down with the flu after the team meal before the game, the Coyotes didn't have enough time to call up a backup goalie for Jason LaBarbera, so they signed an emergency goalied named Tom Fenton to a pro-contract who works in the community relations department at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y.

And lastly, because I should explain why I have a photo of a Stamkos bobblehead: The Lightning are giving away Steven Stamkos bobbleheads to the first 5000 fans in Lightning gear going to the game against Carolina on Monday. And I think that bobble head of Stamkos holding his trophy is a pretty awesome looking bobblehead. It's like "Hi I'm Steven Stamkos, I'm holding a trophy, what are YOU holding bitch?" no comments

HEYO!



and somebody made a save:



And who's back on the ice:



Lightning win 2-1 no comments

Enemy Blog:  Thrashing the Blues or Blueland Chronicle

Record: Lightning (16-10-4) Thrashers (17-11-3)

Game time: 7:30pm EST on SUN (HD) and on the radio at 620 WDAE

Game day events: Toys for tots drive, Sweetbay ticket vouchers, student rush night...basically lots of ways to get to the game for free/cheap. The first 2500 people at the game IN Lightning gear get a Mattias Ohlund trading card set. Full details here.

Can you believe that the Thrashers have such a similar record to us? Where did this come from Atlanta? And with that latest win over the Senators, the Thrashers leapfrog us in the standings. I'm the first to admit that I don't know what the majority of the SE Division is up to until I'm forced to look up the stats because we're playing them. And speaking of the SE Division, have we even played Carolina this season? Like what's up with the scheduling there NHL?

So the Lightning play the next three games at home, Wednesday against the Thrashers, the Sabres and then finally next Monday, the Hurricanes.

In the two games we've played against the Thrashers this season we've won them both. But the Thrashers have been playing good hockey as of late and have won the last two in a row.

As the Lightning have returned home for a little bit, even though Ellis won in Vancouver, Mike Smith will get the start in goal. Maybe with all this Nabokov whispering, it will inspire him to find him game?

One of the positives for the team is that with two goals on Saturday night, Stamkos has busted him scoring slump. Another positive is that Lecavalier was practicing with the team on Tuesday in a red non-contact jersey and his injury status has now been changed to day-to-day. His leadership more than anything has been sorely missed.

Line-up Notes:

• Mike Smith will get the start in goal
• Vincent Lecavalier and Steve Downie are out for the Lightning
• Ben Eager and Niclas Bergfors is scratched for the Thrashers

Your pre-game reading links:

• Official Lightning preview
• Raw Charge preview
• In the Vancouver Sun, Ian Walker has another edition of Gross Misconduct with Mike Smith. He shares tanning secrets, the last time he built a sand castle and why he's not a fan of twitter. As always with the Gross Misconduct series so far, it's a good read.

Want to read more stuff? Head over to my post on Raw Charge from yesterday that has a ton of Lightning links and stuff from around the NHL no comments

Hockey Canada named their 2011 Team Canada Junior roster today and BOTH our Lightning prospects, Brett Connolly and Carter Ashton made the final cut. If you want to see the entire team roster, Hockey Canada has that up on their website.

Tournament runs from Dec 26th 2010 to January 5 2011 in Buffalo NY. no comments

In a game that in Vancouver was completely overshadowed by the Markus Naslund jersey retirement, the Lightning managed to pull out a win.

I'm late in writing with writing my recap of this game because I just wasn't ready to share my experience of last night. So, if you haven't figured it out already, I was at last night's game. Usually I'm in my Canucks jersey, but once every two years, I get to show up at Rogers Arena is something Lightning related. Last night was my Steven Stamkos player shirt.

The ceremony started at 6pm, and big props to all the ticket holders who showed up an hour earlier than usual for the retirement ceremony. So the ceremony started just after 6 and ran for about an hour, then the teams had their warm-up skate while the tape-delayed ceremony was aired, and then the puck dropped at 7:30pm PST. So no, Ohlund doesn't have super powers allowing him to change from a suit to his hockey gear during a commercial break, don't get me wrong, he was quick, but not that quick.

The ceremony was everything that expected from this organization. It was classy, it was moving and the fans showed there support.

Recap after the jump...
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