30 seconds with …
C Valtteri Filppula
Favorite breakfast: Eggs and oatmeal
Favorite TV show: Dexter
Skill you wish you had: I wish I could play the guitar.
First car: BMW X5
Celebrity crush: Jessica Biel
The traveling pads
Is Monday the day G Cedrick Desjardins finally gets his pads? They have been on quite an odyssey since Desjardins was called up from AHL Syracuse.
Flying through Toronto, Desjardins made it to Winnipeg for Tuesday's game with the Jets, but his pads did not get there until the Lightning had returned to Tampa.
Desjardins borrowed pads from the Jets for Tuesday's game and wore the skates of Tampa Bay goaltenders coach Frantz Jean. Desjardins had old pads in Tampa that he has worn since as Anders Lindback's backup.
His Syracuse pads had remained in Winnipeg, waiting to hitch a ride with the Blue Jackets, who played in Winnipeg on Saturday and face Tampa Bay in Columbus on Monday.
"I just want to know how in today's day and age, how does Cedrick Desjardins not have his own pads yet?" Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "They've circled North America."
The pads' travels have spawned a Twitter account, @CeddysPads.
"I love it," Desjardins said.
Icy issues
Bad ice in the crease at the end of the rink the Capitals would have defended twice Thursday at the Tampa Bay Times Forum (above) forced the teams, in the name of fairness, to switch nets after 10 minutes of each period.
"I felt like on a pond there for a second," Capitals goalie Philipp Grubauer said. "Warmup was terrible because it was so bumpy."
When new ice was put in after the circus played at the Times Forum, the line of the crease near one post was not painted correctly. The ice had to be shaved down and repainted, but that caused a mushy, uneven surface.
A fix was made before the game, but the teams switched ends anyway.
"They scraped it down," Grubauer said, "so it wasn't a huge deal at all."
Quote to note
"Him and (Rangers goalie) Henrick Lundqvist are two of the fiercest competitors I've ever coached. It's a great thing to look at. As far as the size of the player, what's inside of him is more important."
Canucks and former Lightning and Rangers coach John Tortorella, on the Lightning's Marty St. Louis
Number of the day
-59F Lowest temperature — with wind chill — while the Lightning was in Winnipeg last week.