“We had it pretty easy. It was not too hard for me.”

Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Antti Niemi’s description of Sunday night’s game should make the Tampa Bay Lightning organization cringe.

Simply stated, the Lightning are floundering right now.

With just 13 goals in their last nine contests, they are lost offensively. All season long, they haven’t been tough enough in front of their own net and, as Niemi’s comments confirm, far too often, they haven’t been making life difficult enough for their opponent.

As the jumbled pack of Eastern Conference teams begins to sort itself into distinct contender and pretender categories, Tampa Bay doesn’t seem to have much of an identity at the moment and it is high time to establish as much. Just nine games shy of the official half-way point in the schedule, failure to do so – and fast – will leave the Bolts in a familiar lurch: Out of playoff contention with a large chunk of the season still left to play.

With a sub-.500 record at 11-12-9, clearly there are problems to be resolved. An optimistic look at the standings, however, reveals just a five-point gap between the Lightning and sixth-place Ottawa. On the other hand, just two points separates Tampa Bay from Toronto, currently 14th in the conference. Worst of all, the Lightning’s 77 goals matches the offensive output of the NHL’s worst team, the Carolina Hurricanes, and only the St. Louis Blues (74) have scored less in the entire league.

Is a shakeup in order?

Maybe.

But of what variety?

Mid-season blockbuster trades are all but dead these days and we’ve already been over how difficult it would be, theoretically, to move perhaps the biggest Lightning trade chip of all in captain Vincent Lecavalier during the season. (For the record – again – I don’t see this happening but you’ll ask, so there. Call it a pre-emptive strike.)

Trades in general are more difficult than ever and those that do take place don’t often make a major impact. Only seven deals have materialized since the start of this season and I wouldn’t exactly consider Benoit Pouliot for Guillaume Latendresse an earth-mover.

There are no big ticket free agent names waiting to latch on with a club mid-season and, even if there were, the Bolts aren’t exactly in position for that sort of move.

What to do then?

Call-ups from AHL Norfolk are always possible but it isn’t as though the Lightning have a plethora of blue-chippers there ready to answer the call for full-time NHL duty to spark a lagging offense. There are some nice players in the organization, of course, but no one that has the type of talent to turn things around singlehandedly.

Is the coach in trouble?

In a word, no. I like Rick Tocchet behind the Lightning bench and, last I checked, the organization was still very high on him. Let’s not forget as well that this year was supposed to be all about progress. This team wasn’t going to go from 29th overall to Stanley Cup contender in a flash. But they should be more competitive on a nightly basis than they are and that does ultimately fall on the coach.

Besides, what would two coaching changes in 120 games or so do to the stability that’s supposed to be happening around here?

In all likelihood, what you see now is what you’re going to get for the foreseeable future.

But with efforts resulting in loss after disappointing (if not stagnant) loss, something has to happen.

Martin St. Louis recently said the cure for his team’s ills is pretty simple.

“We just need a win.”

Fair enough.

But, to do that, you’re going to need more than a goal-and-a-half per game.

And something different than what’s been taking place lately is most definitely in order, if that’s going to start to happen.

JJ

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