For several Admirals, jobs are on the line

By Jim Hodges, Correspondent

Justin Keller offers this insight into tonight's exhibition hockey game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Norfolk Admirals at Scope:

"I think guys going into the game might have a different mentality," Keller said. "Some will be tired. Others disappointed. But some of us are looking for jobs. We have to play hard."

Most of the tired ones will be wearing Lightning sweaters. They are, after all, finishing a 6,000-mile, five-city, five-night, four-time zone o dyssey with what Tampa Bay is billing as an intrasquad game.

Also tired will be some of the Admirals, who only a day or two earlier played for the Lightning in exhibitions at Winnipeg or Loveland, Colo., or points west.

Count Keller, a left winger, among the unemployed who are seeking work with the Admirals. After three seasons in the American Hockey League, he is without a contract, no longer judged a prospect by Tampa Bay, which in 2004 thought enough of him to draft him in the eighth round.

Keller's three-year entry contract expired in May, and it's something that's hovered over him during summer workouts in British Columbia. At age 23, did his hockey career expire along with his contract,

"You always want to feel security in whatever you're doing, whether it's a job or a relationship or whatever," Keller said. "This summer was different for me in that I didn't have that. I spent more time in the gym to make sure I was more prepared.

"Now I just want to make an impression with anyone I can. I want to go out there and open some eyes and make them regret not signing me."

He will be joined by a few players cut by the Lightning who want to show management that it made a mistake. But they have jobs, even if it is at the minor league level.

Players such as Keller and some of the other 13 who were on the Admirals' roster when training camp opened Wednesday have no such assurance and no reason to coast through the evening.

"Every time I step on the ice, I want to be noticed," he said.

Admirals coach Darren Rumble can understand.

"I had a 17-year career, and every time I went to camp, I was playing for a job," he said.

Even with that empathy, Rumble's role is to dispassionately judge the play of the free agents during tonight's game, an exhibition Sunday at Hershey and at practice sessions. He can remember when Keller struggled during his first year in Norfolk. And he can remember the way Keller played last season.

"He had a very good second half last season, and he's put in the work this summer," Rumble said. "That was evident from his first time on the ice" on Wednesday.

Keller figures the Lightning probably still judge him by his 2007-08 season, when he scored only 15 goals and had 37 points in 70 games with the Admirals.

He ran into a traffic jam last season, often being scratched from the lineup, then getting sent down to Augusta of the East Coast Hockey League for five games in late October. He had 10 goals and nine assists in the Admirals' final 25 games.

"I just need to take off from where I left off last year," he said.

It's harder now, though. Keller blames the down economy for several clubs letting players go, but he's also a part of that same economy.

"You never really realize it until you don't have a contract," he said. "I didn't think about the economy last year, but this summer was a little nerve-wracking and stressful. I don't have a job."

Playing with that burden can be difficult, and he knows there's only one way to lighten it.

"I have to score goals, be a complete player," Keller said. "I have to open eyes, and obviously, goals will do that. I play hard, and I really don't care what the other team does. I know I have to go out there and get noticed."