Girardi's Journal: Getting back in the game

Throughout Tampa Bay Lightning training camp, Bolts defenseman Dan Girardi has been kind enough to chronicle his thoughts in what we're calling: In Their Own Words - Girardi's Journal.
Periodically, we'll be checking in with Girardi to get his thoughts on how training camp is progressing or provide a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in the locker room when the players are hanging out. In this newest installment, as told to TampaBayLightning.com beat writer Bryan Burns, Girardi dissects the Bolts' disappointing preseason-opening loss to Carolina on Tuesday and, as a 13-year veteran of the NHL with almost 865 regular season games under his belt, how he approaches the exhibition schedule.

"I felt pretty good out there for a first preseason game. The legs felt pretty decent. We had four hard days of skating and workouts leading up to the game, so all things considered, I felt good. You're kind of looking to work on all the little breakout plays and playing the body a little bit and getting in shot lanes. It's the first game so you want to try to get all of the rust off. When you're playing a scrimmage against your own teammate in practice, you're not trying to hurt anyone. You don't want to eat a puck in the foot. When it comes to the exhibition games, you want to make sure you're in the right place but at the same time not get hit and get hurt. I think the first preseason game is more about getting the timing down, getting the legs moving. We were trying to work on the right things, made a couple mistakes, it's not a big deal. You work on gaps, playing more in their face. I tried to do that yesterday. Chip high, get deep, things like that. I think you use exhibition games to work on those things, work on the speed and the gaps and that's kind of what I was concentrating on.

I had a good summer of training, and it's been a hard camp so far. Obviously, the legs weren't 100 percent fresh, but I think for the most part, I felt pretty close to 100 percent out there. The years have been dragging on, but it's funny how once you get to this point, you just get hungrier for the season to start again and the opportunity to have a chance at the Stanley Cup. I think what we did last year, to have the same team coming in this season, I'm just happy to have the opportunity to keep playing and be on a team like this and have a chance to win. I'm just trying to do everything I can to help the team and be ready, physically ready, whatever slot they put me in or how much ice time I get, I'm going to work my hardest and do what I can to help the team.
We know we need to change a few things to get us a little further and even improve more in the regular season. One of those is really concentrating on our defensive zone. We have the guys that can put the puck in the net. We're not worried about that. We're worried about defending, making sure the other team doesn't have a lot of shots on Vasy, let him see everything. And then let our talent take over from there. I think that's what we're really trying to key on. Obviously, it wasn't great last night, but I think we really are trying to assert ourselves in the defensive zone, breakouts, D-zone coverage and then kind of work from there.
As a veteran, I approach preseason games as a chance to do whatever you need to do for game one. Every guy's different in what they need to do personally to be ready. Team-wise, you want to make sure the systems are in the right place so that everything's clicking automatically by game one. For me, I want to make sure I'm moving my feet with the puck, making some plays with the puck, maybe working on something you wouldn't necessarily do in a regular season game, maybe that little extra play you try to work on to get the confidence up, getting shots through from the point, all those things that are going to help come start of the season. Whatever you need to do to get ready. Every year's different.

This season, we have seven preseason games. Personally, I like to play three or four just to get the game feel, get the bumps in, get hit a little more. Once the season starts, it's going to amp up considerably. The number of preseason games you get into is up to Coop and the coaching staff. Even though I'm at this stage in my career, I really don't get a say in how many games I play. Whatever they tell me I'm doing, just be ready for the game, take it seriously. I just want to make sure I'm ready for game one. Every day, that's what I'm keying on.
I think we can chalk up last night's loss to it being the first preseason game after four hard days of camp. Guys were a little tired. I think Carolina didn't have many of their regulars in the lineup, but they had a lot of guys that were fighting for jobs. We actually had a pretty solid lineup and maybe we were just feeling it out, trying to get our legs under us, first game. But, we're going to be a lot better than that. The result we don't really care about, as long as we're playing the proper way the whole game. We had a couple spurts where we were good, the last five minutes in the first, we were jumping in the play, moving our feet, that's what we need to do for 60 minutes and we all know that. Hopefully as we go on, tonight and moving on, just play that 60 minutes the way we need to play. Result aside, we just want to make sure we're playing well going into the first game.