Thom Loverro: Kolzig is not at home in a visiting uniform

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By Thom Loverro

You think it will be strange to see Olie Kolzig in a Tampa Bay Lightning uniform Monday night in the opposing goal at Verizon Center?

Think how strange it will be for Kolzig.

"Yes, I am thinking about Monday night," Kolzig said when he came off the ice Saturday after the morning practice at Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, where the Lightning faced the Flyers that night.

He didn't play, but Kolzig already knew he was scheduled to start Monday night against his old team and had been thinking about this game since he signed a deal with Tampa Bay.

Kolzig said he spoke to teammate Jeff Halpern about how to approach this moment as Halpern did when he played for the Dallas Stars after six seasons with the Capitals.

"He said the key is to not worry about what people will be thinking and don't worry about them trying to analyze your every move out there," Kolzig said. "Just go out there and try to win a hockey game and play like you play."

While Jeff Halpern may have been the local kid made good playing for his hometown team in the District his return as an opposing player is not quite the same as the return of Olie the Goalie, who debuted with the Caps during the 1989-90 season and was the face and identity of this franchise for much of that time.

From 1998, the year the Capitals went to the Stanley Cup Finals, until the emergence of superstar Alex Ovechkin last season as hockey's dominant player, Kolzig was the Capitals.

The joke in town used to be that a Capitals player could walk down the street outside Verizon Center and not be recognized. Not Kolzig - which is ironic because he was the one player who wore a mask that covered his face. He was often the spokesman for the team in the locker room and was so active in community service that he was the exception to that joke.

That's why it was so difficult and messy last year when Kolzig found himself on the bench more often after the arrival of new coach Bruce Boudreau, first sharing time with Brent Johnson and then shut out altogether after a trade brought Cristobal Huet to the District at the end of February.