Short-handed Augusta adjusts

The Augusta Lynx defense has three tiers: the healthy, the injured and the forwards impersonating defenders.

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Sean Connolly, Treavor Peterson and Phil Cole represent the players most likely to line up on defense tonight against the Columbia Inferno (17-10-3, 37 points). They constitute the healthy tier, though it might be more fitting to say healthy-enough-to-play tier.

Lawne Snyder, Steve Munn, Rod Sarich and John Cronin are the defensive players most likely to come dressed in suits and ties tonight. Cronin is definitely out with a knee injury, while the most coach Stan Drulia will say about the other three is that they're day to day.

"We're all day to day," Drulia said with a look of exasperation.

Outside of practices and Wednesday's game against Charlotte, Drulia has spent a considerable amount of time searching for a defenseman or two to fill in this weekend.

He borrowed a player from the Southern Professional Hockey League's Fayetteville, N.C., team against Charlotte, but it was only a one-game loan.

If he can't come up with some help for tonight, the Lynx will move on to the third tier of their defense - the impersonators. Forward Mike Sandbeck played some defense earlier in the season and helped out again Tuesday night.

Todd Bennett, one of the Lynx's hottest scorers, switched to defense when Cronin was injured in an accident involving an open rink door.

Louis Goulet - the Lynx's captain and center - discovered Wednesday he'd be on defense that night in Charlotte. Goulet usually plays defense on the Lynx's power play and netted a power-play goal Wednesday.

He and Bennett were both dressed in black (defensive) jerseys, while Sandbeck was on offense in practice Thursday.

"It's a little bit different game, there's a different strategy to it, but it's hockey and you've got to adjust," Goulet said.

Adjusting is something the Lynx (12-18-4, 28 points) have had to do a lot of recently.

The addition of center Eric Johansson a week ago from the AHL caused Drulia to shift his forwards around. Then Snyder got hurt Friday, followed by Peterson on Sunday when he crashed into the wall in the second period so hard a door popped open. Peterson returned in the third when Sarich got hurt, leaving the Lynx with four defensemen.

The Lynx went into Tuesday's game with only 17 players dressed. Cronin's injury caused Drulia to pull Bennett off his line and onto defense, causing more of a shake up to the offense, and leaving the Lynx with two empty spots in the lineup.

"It always happens in groups, it seems like," Connolly said. "But you've just got to keep going. That's what we're trying to do."

Five of the 21 players (forward Jarrett Thompson is the fifth) on the Lynx's roster are most likely out this weekend, leaving Augusta with 16 players instead of the 18 teams are allowed to dress for a game.

The pared-down roster is making it tough on a team that was off to a 5-1-2 post-Christmas record before losing its past two games.

But even with a three-tiered defense and a depleted lineup, Drulia's optimism is holding up.

"I expect to win every game, I don't care who we've got," he said. "If you don't have that attitude, you're playing for the wrong guy. That's the attitude you have to have."