It was hard to get to the bottom of it, completely, because several of the participants declined to talk about it. But it seems one of the most important aspects of the Andre Roy situation was the role played by team leaders Vinny Lecavalier and Marty St. Louis.

While investigating what to do with Roy while he was on what basically was a 10-game suspension, GM Jay Feaster spoke to a lot of people, including the coaching staff, Roy's agent, Pat Brisson, and Lecavalier and St. Louis. It is believed the support of Roy's teammate was key in keeping Roy in the team's good graces.

St. Louis declined to talk about it. So did coach john Tortorella -- "Don't ask me questions about Andre'' -- and Feaster. But Lecavalier said the message from the players was, "We wanted Andre back as soon as we could. We know Andre is emotional and by embarrassing him on the scoreboard, that's when the emotions came out. But 99.9 percent of the time, his emotions are in check. He goes out there for his teammates. I feel protected when he's playing. He's a big part of the team.''

"That's big-time,'' Roy said of the sentiment. "That the leaders did that ... that's basically why I'm here.''

Roy said he will be all right with it if he doesn't play again this season; it will be a coaches decision. And he said he hopes the situation does not change the Lightning's sentiment to re-sign him for next season.

"I'm just going to work hard and do my best,'' Roy said, "my usual thing.''

As for Flyers players whom Roy said was laughing at him as Riley Cote's one-punch fight victory was shown over and over on the Wachovia Center scoreboard, Roy said, "That showed no respect. We all have a job to do. I got ringed. It's part of the game. But at that point I just wanted to go in and show.''