For the first time this season, it’ll be awfully difficult for me to fill The Bad and The Ugly sections of this game recap.

Here’s to that! (Too early for a toast, gang. Easy now …)

I’m sure I’ll find something …

For now, as always, we’ll start with the positives. In last night’s 5-2 Tampa Bay Lightning victory, there were many.

The Good
Wright Away!

I was curious to see just how long it would take for rookie James Wright to either make an impact alongside Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis or be shuffled off onto a new line.

30 seconds into San Jose’s visit Thursday night, the wait was over.

Wright finished off a gorgeous passing play from each of his new linemates with a tap-in at the goalmouth to beat Evgeni Nabokov just a half-minute into first period action, giving the Lightning their first 1-0 lead of the season.

With one game to go before the Lightning must make a decision on whether or not Wright remains with the big club or heads back to the Vancouver Giants for another season of junior, he can now boast of some offensive success to go with the youthful enthusiasm and hardhat work ethic that has so many in the organization overly impressed.

“He works as hard as anybody,” head coach Rick Tocchet said of Wright. “Maybe even harder. I’m really proud of him.”

Nothing has been decided yet, but it sure looks as though the young winger is in for the long haul.

Production Through and Through

Snatching the early lead gave Tampa Bay a jolt in confidence against a strong Sharks team and the fact that the goal came from the 19-year-old Wright may have hammered home the point that this team needs contributions from everyone.

Last night, that’s exactly what they got.

The residual effect of the line shakeups, intended at least in part to help spark Lecavalier, went beyond the top two forward groups:

St. Louis’ reunion with the Lightning captain meant Steve Downie would take his spot next to Ryan Malone and Steven Stamkos.

Downie’s promotion saw Stephane Veilleux join Todd Fedoruk and Zenon Konopka on the fourth line.

Alex Tanguay left Lecavalier’s side to take Veilleux’s spot on a line with Jeff Halpern and Drew Miller.

And, lo and behold, it all seemed to click against the Sharks.

St. Louis and Lecavalier, of course, assisted on Wright’s marker.

Malone and Stamkos didn’t miss a beat without St. Louis, combining for three tallies between them. That makes seven already for the former Pittsburgh Penguin – good enough to put him in the company of Edmonton’s Dustin Penner, Marian Gaborik of the Rangers and Patrick Marleau and Devin Setoguchi of San Jose for a fourth-place tie on the league leaderboard. Stamkos’ pair makes six for the sophomore (who didn’t reach the six-goal mark until January 19th in his rookie campaign of a year ago).

Downie made a dent on his new line as well, with an assist on the Malone goal.

Veilleux’s arrival next to Konopka and Fedoruk meant the grit of that line didn’t miss a beat and, as an added bonus, Fedoruk and Veilleux drew helpers on a third period goal from defenseman Andrej Meszaros. (A softy, yes, but Meszaros’ goal looks exactly like the tic-tac-toe beauty from Wright in the box score and the instant production is noteworthy.)

Tanguay’s game was better all around and he drew praise from teammates for passing up a chance at his first goal of the season late in the third, when he fed Stamkos for an empty-netter.

“It just shows you what a class act Tangs is,” Stamkos said. “He could have shot it into the net but he passed it to me and it was a great play.”

“That’s karma that will come back to him for sure,” added goaltender Mike Smith.


Smitty Superb

Smith’s work last night in net was excellent and came on the heels of a lull in the schedule that allowed the Lightning netminder to work on fundamentals in this week’s practices (which, he said, he mentally prepared for as though they were games) in an effort to get his game back on track. After three fine performances from backup Antero Niittymaki, the pressure was on Smith to deliver against an offensively-gifted San Jose squad. With 32 saves (and several of them spectacular), visions of the Smitty of a year ago were once again a reality in the eyes of the Lightning faithful.

After the win, which came exactly nine months and a day since his last, Smith cited confidence for himself and for the team as the biggest positive of all.

“Hopefully,” he said. “This will carry over and I can get some confidence from this game. The whole team can. We played really well tonight.”

The Bad

Still 0-For, But …

It has to be mentioned, because it’s still an issue, but I want to preface this by saying the goose eggs in the goal column for Lecavalier and Tanguay are not causing anyone to panic – yet.

Both players performed much better in the San Jose game and Lecavalier’s efforts were singled out by Tocchet in the postgame press conference.

“I think it was his most solid game of the year,” said the coach. “I don't care that he didn't score tonight. He was very solid. He went end-to-end with (Joe) Thornton and (Patrick) Marleau and we expect that from Vinny. It was a solid effort tonight.”

Aside from the assist on Wright’s goal, Lecavalier had three shots on goal, was a plus-1, won 10 of his 16 faceoffs and showed a little bit more of the “ugly” side Tocchet’s been calling for out of his captain, going after Douglas Murray in the third before Fedoruk stepped in. (The exchange did see Lecavalier draw a slashing penalty, however, which led to a Dan Boyle power play goal, drawing the Sharks to within two.)

It’ll stay in The Bad column until the streak is broken but there wasn’t much bad about Vinny’s game last night at all.

Only a matter of time …


Get it Deep!

This is most certainly nitpicking but, like I said, as solid a win as this was for the Bolts, it isn’t as easy to point out flaws as it was on last week’s road trip, let’s say.

That said, in the waning minutes of the third period, while controlling the puck in the San Jose zone, Downie favored some dipsy-do stickhandling rather than throwing the puck behind the Sharks net to eat up some clock and made one of his three turnovers in the game trying to send a pass through the middle back to the point, leading to a rush for the opposition.

It didn’t translate directly to a scoring chance or anything but Downie has to be aware of the time on the clock and show a little more discipline there by forgoing any potential offensive opportunity and focusing on keeping things deep in their zone.

Just sayin’ ...

The Ugly
Show Up!

I’ll keep this simple, Tampa Bay sports fans.

All you ask is for a quality product, right?

The Tampa Bay Rays are doing the same thing my New York Mets are doing right now – golfing – after missing out on MLB’s postseason by a large margin.

The Buccaneers have a legitimate shot at a winless season in the NFL.

And the Lightning are 3-0-1 at home.

As of right now, you have an 87.5% chance of going to a Lightning game and heading home a winner. (And who doesn’t need that vicarious boost in self-esteem???)

I’d venture to guess that there were roughly 8,000 and change, in terms of actual living, breathing souls in the building last night (and 5,000 or so invisi-fans to reach the 13,000+ announced attendance total).

And I don’t get it.

Cheap tickets, a positive atmosphere, a winning team (and cheap drinks! No, really, half-price postgame beers outside, people! There’s your selling point!)

Seriously, no excuses. Get to the rink. You’re missing out.

***

Great effort last night, through and through, for the Lightning.

If they can manage to replicate that more often than not, this season could quickly turn into something special.

JJ

***Submit your questions for the first 2009-2010 edition of JJ’s Mailbag.***

jon.jordan@hockeybuzz.com

JJ on Facebook

JJ on Twitter