The Tampa Bay Lightning are all over the place this off-season. Tonight, they added two more transactions to a very long list of off-season moves.
On the eve of the eve to the opening of the free agency market, a big name is off the table. After being traded from the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Tampa Bay Lightning yesterday, Ryan Malone has signed a long term deal with his new team. There is no official confirmation from the Lightning on their website at the moment but TSN is reporting that it is a seven-year deal worth $31.5 million. It's loaded up front, too. TSN is estimating that Malone will receive $15 million during the first two years of the deal. That makes for a very expensive 50-point guy this year and a very cheap one down the road. A very interesting contract structure, to be sure.
But don't think that's all the Lightning did late on Sunday night. They also acquired the rights to another highly sought after free agent to be, Brian Rolston of the Minnesota Wild. This story was confirmed on their website as of 11:30 PM Sunday night. In return the Wild will receive a conditional draft pick in either 2009 or 2010. I would imagine, but this is pure speculation, that it is tied into whether or not Rolston signs with Tampa Bay.
So there you have it, folks. More moves by a team that has taken the NHL transaction wire by storm. Right now I'm off to bed, but you can be sure FanHouse will have coverage of this and more in the morning. Stay with us into Tuesday as well as we'll have wall-to-wall coverage of the Free Agent Frenzy.
We've known for a little while that Gary Roberts probably wasn't going to return to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tuesday, Roberts' agent told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he would return to the NHL, but not the Penguins. Yesterday we got a step closer to finding out who one of the potential suitors could be. Who else but the Tampa Bay Lightning, who seem to have their hand in everything that goes on around the NHL these days.
Yesterday the Lightning acquired the rights to Roberts and teammate Ryan Malone from the Penguins in exchange for a conditional draft pick which hinges on whether or not the Bolts can sign Malone. Pittsburgh receives a third rounder in 2009 if he inks with Tampa, a fourth rounder if he doesn't.
This move seems to make sense for both teams. For Pittsburgh, they receive something for two players that were likely not to re-sign with them -- but still could re-sign with them. Chances are though that the Penguins would not have made this move if they thought they were likely to sign one/both players. On the other end, Tampa Bay gets first dibs on negotiating with the pair, only days before they would hit the open market on July 1.
Probably the most hard hit about the move were those at Pensblog, the home of the slogan "WWGRD?" Their feelings might best be summed up by this quote from commenter Julia:
"my heart just fell in my butt"
There you have it, folks. The hearts of Penguins fans are now in their butts.
One quibble with these reports: Both refer to the completion of the deal as virtually assuring that Lecavalier will finish his career with the Lightning, but I think by now all of us know that's not true. All he has to do is waive his "no-movement" clause, and the Lightning can send him to a team and situation of his choosing -- an eventuality that's common as many players reach the end of their careers, teams seek to rebuild and veterans decide they want one more shot at winning a championship, even if it is in colors starkly different from the ones they've worn over the majority of their careers.
But that day, if and when it comes, is still a long ways off. For now, Lightning fans can feel secure in knowing that the team's cornerstone superstar isn't going anywhere.
At this point, no one is really sure what to make of it. Some think it's insane. The game has passed Melrose by, they say. He wasn't that good of a coach to begin with, they add. Fair points.
There are also those out there in internet land making counterpoints. The game hasn't passed him by, they retort. He's been watching hockey all the time for all these years. Give it time, like a fine wine, they continue.
Both are fair arguments. Both make good points. But, like any prospect you draft, Melrose is either going to pan out he is not. Someone is going to be right and someone is going to be wrong. Sadly for those of us out there with A.D.D. we're not going to get a solution to it soon. It's going to take some time.
To be respected as a coach, Melrose is going to have to prove a couple of things. First off, he's going to have to show that he can manage a locker room and that the game hasn't passed him by. We all know how much attention he pays to the game. Now it's time for him to show us if he's been taking notes. We're also going to see how good he can make a bad situation. The Lightning are great up front but they were the worst team in the league for a reason -- they tied the Thrashers for the most goals against in the NHL last year with 266. Melrose will have to teach this team defense or at least get the Bolts new ownership group to bring some in. This team needs defense like a gold digger needs their spouse's salary. They won't survive without it.
For now, it's all up for debate. Only time will tell how good/bad of a move this is for Tampa Bay. One thing is for sure, though. This is the most controversial move of the summer. That is, until the Islanders promote their stick boy to VP or Kevin Lowe does, well, anything.
Here's a new feature I've been resisting for a while here at FanHouse, but with the offseason upon us I feel as if we have no choice. Welcome to The Bag Skate, FanHouse's afternoon roundup of everything that's happening on a typical offseason weekday. Why The Bag Skate? Because it's Summertime and you'd probably rather be doing just about anything else than writing about hockey with weather this beautiful. Now, might one be able to say that we're swiping this idea from elsewhere? I'd prefer to call it an homage.
The head turner of the day has to be Rick Westhead's stunner in the Toronto Star revealing that LA Kings owner Phil Anschutz and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold were the money men behind William "Boots" Delbaggio's purchase of a stake in the Nashville Predators. What's worse, Leipold and Anschutz, who both sit on the league's Board of Governors and are considered allies of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, made this $17 million loan without informing him about what they were up to. I wonder why?
While Barry Melrose might still be in denial mode, the first domino to fall to get the great mullet to Tampa tumbled just a few hours ago when the Tampa Bay Lightning announced that they had fired head coach John Tortorella. In his seven seasons with the Lightning, Tortorella went 239-222-36-38, with his crowning achievement being the 2004 Stanley Cup Champ.
Unfortunately for Tortorella, it's been all downhill ever since, as the Bolts have failed to win even one playoff round after their championship seaon, culminating in an embarrassing finish at the bottom of the standings in 2007-08.
Still, even with that disastrous finish still in the rear view mirror, Tortorella seemed to maintain respect around the league, both among his peers and in the press corps, as one of the game's top coaches. Here's how John Fontana of Bolts Mag sees it:
Thirteen years after he was dismissed as head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, Barry Melrose is going to get another kick at the can as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Damien Cox of the Toronto Star has the skinny:
It's believed new Tampa owner Oren Koules is the driving force behind the hiring of Melrose, who led the Los Angeles Kings to the the 1993 Stanley Cup final against Montreal. In recent years, the Kelvington, Sask. native has been a featured analyst on ESPN.
Koules, once partnered with former Columbus president Doug MacLean to buy the Lightning before that collaboration broke up, is looking for a marquee name to help sell and market the club in central Florida. Tampa, which won the 2004 Stanley Cup, missed the playoffs this year.
Melrose's hiring will surprise many NHL watchers, as will his salary, expected to be about $2 million per season.
As Cox later notes, Melrose's departure is going to blow a hole in ESPN's coverage of the NHL, much of which is centered around him. Although he took on a lower profile at the WWL when ESPN declined to renew its contract to carry the NHL in the wake of the lockout, Melrose continued to serve as the network's lead hockey analyst, often appearing online beside ESPN.com contributor E.J. Hradek and hosting a regular podcast called The Melrose Line.
One wonders what John Tortorella, who after all is still officially the head coach of the Lightning, thinks about this.
It's hard to believe sometimes that it's only been four years since the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup.
The years since then have been rough on the Lightning and their fans. First off, it was anything but fair for the faithful in Tampa to have to wait a whole extra year before they got to scream their lungs out as the championship banner was raised to the rafters after the lockout.
But it's been all downhill since then, with salary cap considerations forcing painful changes to the lineup as the team fell in the standings. The coup de grace came just a few weeks ago as the team was forced to deal former Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards as the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
But help is on the way now that the Lightning have won the draft lottery and won the right to pick first in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. But while everyone in the hockey world has known that Steve Stamkos was the presumptive #1 pick for some time now, getting that message out to a non-traditional market like Tampa can be something of a challenge.
Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.
As the playoffs near, NHL hockey typically gets more conservative as standings points become dearer, and last night was a good example. Of the five games played, four of them went into overtime, two on the strength of last-minute tying goals. Nine of the ten teams came away with standings points, which will agitate some idle teams, but at least it presented a good opportunity for some heroics. Who was willing to step up and grab that extra point?
In New Jersey, that hero was Patrik Elias, who fired a shot past Lightning goaltender Karri Ramo in the final minute of 4-on-4 overtime. The 2-1 overtime win helped the Devils vault over the idle Canadiens and Penguins into the top spot in the eastern conference, and the overtime loss pulled the Lightning out of a last place tie with the Los Angeles Kings.
Sean McCormick of Sportsnet.ca doesn't like the NHL's scoring system and its "charity point" for losing in overtime or in a shootout. While I can appreciate that three-point games make it tougher to gain ground in the standings, I do support that the system rewards a team's 5-on-5 results. Points act as a playoff qualifier, and it makes sense that they reward teams that are playing the best regulation hockey. How a team performs in 60 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey should matter more in determining playoff pedigree than a team's 4-on-4 or shootout success.
After the break: Four more one-goal games further complicate the standings, plus what will the Ducks do without Corey Perry? (My guess is they'll dive less.)
Palace Sports & Entertainment and OK Hockey LLC have a definitive purchase agreement for the Tampa Bay Lightning, the leasehold rights to the St. Pete Times Forum and approximately 5.5 acres of land in Tampa's Channelside District. Details of the deal were not released, but earlier reports had set the purchase price in the $200 million neighborhood.
Of course, the team was just about sold a few months back, before the whole thing unraveled like a poor movie plot (Something the prospective owner should know all about).
While Koules might love horror shows, he can't like the fact that the Lightning are in last place in the Eastern Conference, have 95% of their payroll tied up in three players, and have very little in the way of good prospects in the system. It'll take some Hollywood Magic to turn this franchise around, that's for sure.
No matter which source you consult these days, the word is Vincent Lecavalier is staying in Tampa for the forseeable future.
If you've been around the hockey blogosphere at all during the past couple weeks, you've surely heard about the hottest rumor this side of St. Petersburg, Florida -- 
Here's a new feature I've been resisting for a while here at FanHouse, but with the offseason upon us I feel as if we have no choice. Welcome to The Bag Skate, FanHouse's afternoon roundup of everything that's happening on a typical offseason weekday. Why 
While Barry Melrose might still be in denial mode, the first domino to fall to 
Thirteen years after he was dismissed as head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, Barry Melrose is going to get another kick at the can as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. 
