TAMPA — From the front office to the stick boys, everyone with the Lightning made one thing very clear to wayward winger Steve Downie.
He would do himself and his team no good by serving 20-game suspensions every year, wasting his talent and exhuberance on a sideshow career instead of being a scorer and positive contributor.
“We try to keep him composed,” linemate Martin St. Louis said Thursday. “It’s an every day thing. It all depends what triggers him, who (pushes his buttons). So we’re trying to prepare him when that happens. He has become a pretty effective player for us.”
Now, instead of being called on the carpet by whatever league executive he has happened to cross, Downie often hears his name announced with Tampa’s starting six. He was a team-high plus-six before facing the Maple Leafs, with 11 points in 13 games, lately with Lightning stars Vincent Lecavalier and St. Louis.
“This is all new to me,” Downie said. “I’ve never had this chance before. When you’re only playing three minutes a night, you need to be an energy player who can take care of things. But I’m not out any more against many guys who like to do the rough part of the game.
“Getting more ice, the guys you play with, getting power-play time ... it all makes a difference.”
Downie still has a long way to go to erase a negative image stemming from such misdeeds as attacking Windsor junior teammate Akim Aliu and a 2007 blind-side hit on Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond when he was with Philadelphia. The latter cost him 20 games, one of the longest suspensions in NHL history and the AHL upheld it when the Flyers demoted him.
Last March, after he was acquired by Tampa Bay, he served 20 more games in the AHL for physical abuse of a linesman.
But reform school began that spring, with intense off-season conditioning that took 10 pounds off, with a focus on bringing out the scoring touch that produced 50 points in each of his final two junior seasons with Peterborough and made him a big part of two Canadian world junior teams.
“His emotion somewhat makes him as a player, so it’s a fine line,” St. Louis said. “The closer he is to that line, the more effective he becomes. As long as he doesn’t cross it.”
Downie said Tampa’s staff has been “an inspiration to me” and there is a kindred spirit with coach Rick Tocchet, who played for the Flyers and liked to use brawn in his offensive arsenal.
“When Steve’s the first guy forechecking, not many defencemen want to go back,” Tocchet said proudly. “He has got an attitude, something we’re trying to establish here.”
