Intensity grows at Lightning's second training camp practice

The opening drill of day two at Tampa Bay Lightning training camp set the tone for the remainder of the session.

The nets at AMALIE Arena were moved from their normal position to opposite blue lines to create a mini-game competition. Rather than placing them in the center of the ice as they typically do, the coaching staff moved the nets over toward one side of the rink, putting the wall into play.

Once the action commenced, teams of two battled against one another. Players used their bodies to protect the puck. The players without the puck used their bodies to try to knock their competitor off the puck. Sometimes these collisions took place against the boards.

If the purpose of the opening day of training camp was to get the Lightning back into the flow of practicing and up to game speed, day two was centered around ramping up the physicality.

The coaching staff made sure of that by the drills they had the players conduct.

"The guys were really into it," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said at the conclusion of practice. "I think there's a little apprehension yesterday because it was the first day on the ice and how things were going to go, and they gradually got into it. But today they came in guns blazing. But part of it was the design of the practice as well. As we slowly progress, the practices will get harder. They will get more intense. We added a little bit of body contact in today, so that always amps things up. But guys were pretty engaged today."

The hitting wasn't limited to the first drill of the day, either.

Later in each session, Lightning goalie coach Frantz Jean took a can of black spray paint and drew a line down the center of the ice from the end wall to the nearest blue line. The nets were placed facing each other roughly around the outer edges of each circle within the same zone, creating a sort of one-third sized rink.

Then, with a goalie in each net, one player tried to keep possession in the offensive zone against a competitor trying to take the puck away from him. Once the opponent gained possession, he moved into the opposite offensive zone to try to score, where a new player was waiting to dispossess him of the puck.

And on it went through each player on the Lightning, creating battling against the boards and jostling for position and generally getting more into the fighting spirit the Bolts will need once they enter the bubble in Toronto and start competing in playoff games for real.

"For us it's about getting into that playoff mentality right away, so you've got to have kind of that mentality going into practice," Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said. "You've got to leave it all out there. You've got to empty yourself and play the way you're supposed to play. You've got to play your role from the start and get your body and your mind ready for it."

The Lightning have 11 days of practice before they depart for their hub city of Toronto. After that, they'll play just one exhibition game and three round robin matchups that determine seeding, starting with an August 3 matchup against Washington.

Then they'll be thrust into a best-of-seven opening round playoff series against a team coming off a best-of-five playoff series win.

Coming off the four-month pause, the Lightning will have less than month to go from virtually no activity or light skating to playoff intensity. If they're not ready, they could find themselves facing a deficit in their opening series pretty quickly.

Which is why Tuesday's practice session revolved around creating the physicality they'll see plenty of once the postseason begins.

"Eventually we're going to start scrimmaging, and we'll start slow. We'll probably get a little one in (Wednesday) and then as we go through camp here, we'll probably make them a little more formal and try and replicate games as much as possible," Cooper said. "That's why we've got as many guys in camp to be able to play games where we won't have the full complement of 12 and six but we'll be close and so we can get a lot of things done. It's just going to be like this whole camp, we're going to start slow and build it up and probably the first step of that will be (Wednesday)."

The balance between easing into game action to protect from injury and going all out to be prepared when the puck drops to start the postseason is a tricky one to be sure. But it's a tight rope the Lightning will have to walk to make sure they can match the intensity of their first-round playoff opponent who will have already competed in a do-or-die scenario the week prior.

"You're going to have to put your team in a position to play meaningful hockey games and when you do that, there's going to have to be contact," Cooper said. "You do that all the time during the regular season, the 82 games you play and the couple times of practices you have a week. I'm not saying they're all battle practices, but you do a lot of those to get yourself ready, especially early in the year. You just can't run flow practices. You can't run these no touch (practices) the whole time because at some point, somebody's coming after you and you've got to be prepared for it. It's always the tough part. It's a difficult balance in practices because teammates don't usually like to hit teammates, and so as coaches you have to kind of create environments, especially competitive drills, where it's an inevitable that they're going to have physical contact because it's just not in their nature to go through and hit their own guys. We'll create some of that environment, but we don't put our players in positions to get hurt. But, unfortunately, it's part of the game. Hopefully, we can escape that."