Going into Today’s action, here’s how close the Eastern Conference is ith regards to seeding.

Usually when the Deadline and Playoff time comes around, you focus on teams “On the bubble” but with how far back the Bubble teams are falling (Sabres are the closest team in theast and they are 8 points back going into today) you got to wonder if it’s just seed-jockeying that will matter in the east while the West has at least one team on the bubble — venerable St. Louis…

Just for fun and for admiring sheer stupidity, here’s some of the talk I’ve found on the web regarding the Lightning and the rumors that are around….

First the utterly ridiculous:

St. Louis for Whitney – FanHome

I’he heard that Whitney, $2,000,000 and a 1st and 2nd round draft pick will be enough for Detroit to secure St. Louis before the trade deadline of the 9th of March
-5holepart2

:rolleyes

Kubina for Gonchar?? – FanHome

Has anyone else heard about this possible trade??
The Caps are in financial troubles and want to get Gonchar off the pay-roll? Is there any substance in this rumour do you feel?
A 4th or 5th round draft pick is also alledged to be involved here with the Bolts letting one of the two up
-5holepart2

:rolleyes :rolleyes

HFBoards – Richards for Samsonov?

How do Bolts fans feel about Sergei Samsonov? Putting contracts aside, would you trade us Richards for him? On the Bruins’ side, most people are against the deal. What do you think? Please elaborate

Responses

• Its funny, I’ve never heard a trade rumor with the Bruins that wasn’t for Samsonov
• I would be against this deal.

  That would open up a gaping hole at center for Tampa Bay, only to upgrade a wing position (Fedotenko) that’s been pretty good lately.

  Samsonov can’t seem to stay healthy, and we already have a dynamic, undersized winger in STL.

  Then you factor in the Lecavalier-Richards connection, as well as the affection the TB area has for Richards (not to mention with Torts and Feaster) and it makes it even more unlikely.

  Richards is close to being untouchable in Tampa.

  Extremely unlikely he’ll be moved anytime within the next 5 years.

“I’d do this deal in a second” was a response to this and “thank god you’re not GM” was the follow up – with this pleasant exchange I moved on with my search…

It’s also interesting to note that, after having lived off message boards for years and seen how crazy the hockey forums can get at trade-deadline time, no mention of the Prospal rumors came up in the Rumors and Draft forums on FanHome or Metroboards (up until I posted something about them – and was met with some skepticism that I was just pulling the rumor out of my ass on

So anyway – I’d like to repost more ridiculousness that you come across on the web — we’ve got 10 days to go until the deadline and there will be plenty of ridiculousness (it happens every year) until then.

Well, the East gets oh-so-much-more tight tonight as the Flyers have lost to Boston. Boston, the Leafs and Ottawa are in a dead heat in the Northeast division…

The Lightning — if they beat Washington tonight — pulls within a point of the Flyers for the #2 seed in the East as Ottawa takes over the #1 seed, while Toronto and Boston are ready to swoop in and dethrone the Senators at a moments notice.

It’s been a long while since this fan followed a team in a “pennant chase” of sorts (this ain’t baseball, Ladies and gents, sorry to use the phrase) and I forgot just how captivating it can be.

Postscript in my excitement I didn’t pay attention to the fact the Flyers lost in OT. They gain a point. The Bolts are still 2 points back from the 2nd seed…

Damian Cristordero decides to buck the trend and bring up the other rumors the are surrounding the LIghtning right now. While Vaclav Prospal talk dominates the league, Damian brings up the possibility of goalie depth and another defensiveman being acquired before the deadline.

With Nolan Pratt capable and sitting nightly, I don’t believe defense is a dire need — but then again, Darren Rumble is the other D-man on the roster…. Ugh…

Meanwhile, the Lightning’s most capable goalie in the minors is Brian Eklund playing for the ECHL Pensacola Ice Pilots…. A third goalie with some experience would be nice to have for the playoffs alone…

The Florida Panthers are stocked with young talent (but rumors of financial peril and relocation are around) and will be a force to deal with in the future…

The Atlanta Thrashers are on the verge — if injuries and consistency didn’t cause problems for them, they would have kept the Southeast division a tight race….

The Carolina Hurricanes are treading water, in the division — down for a while and then back up before heading down again….

And what of the Washington Capitals?

With a payroll that was out-of-this-world and a lack of wins to show for it, the fire running rampant through the Capitals lineup continues as Robert Lang — the co-leader of points earned in the NHL, was sent to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for prospects and draft picks…

Rebuilding can really be a bitch, Washington fans… You probably know it better than I do — even though I and other Tampa Bay fans, had been living it for years after a sole playoff appearance in the mid-1990’s.

Who and what will be left in DC by the time March 9th comes around? Your guess is as good as mine…

You know, when the Lightning played Anaheim a few weeks ago, I thought in a humorous way that Vaclav Prospal being traded back to Tampa Bay might be the best for both teams — one team needed a strong forward and another needed to rid itself of a paycheck.

Well, the Tampa Tribune let it be known that Jay Feaster, so against messing with Team Chemistry, is looking at bringing back Vinny Prospal.

Vinny left the Lightning because the team offered $2.25 Million dollars less than the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. I would be odd — if not costly — to bring Prospal back into the fold so soon after he left. Anaheim’s GM Chuck Fletcher attended Thursday’s victory against the Maple Leafs to boot, so talks may be accelerated as is.

MADDENING SITUATION

“I don’t want to get into a situation where I’m causing a distraction to the team,” Pratt said. “But we were playing well, and I thought I was playing well. I feel like I can play and want to be part of things. It’s not the same when you’re not playing. That’s what it comes down to, just wanting to play and participate and contribute.”

It’s sort of funny that Tortorella continiously plays the same lineup without changing who he scratches. There have been questions posed by others — Damian at the Times being one of them — about team depth. How much depth do you have when some of the players that are on your roster aren’t in game shape?

Well, five years between two points in Atlanta.

It could be much worse — such as 14 seasons between playoff appearances or 84 years between World Series championships. Much worse when you think of those two standards (set by the Buccaneers and Boston Red Sox, respectively).

At any rate, Vinny Lecavalier scored two goals – one to open scoring in Atlanta tonight, and the other to break a 2-2 tie late in the third — while Ruslan Fedotenko notched 2 assists to further propel the Lightning away from it’s southeastern conference rival.

Of course, the focus of the Lightning (and this fan) is looking forward, and the Eastern Conference top seeds are closer for the moment….

Pardon the pun :smile

The Herald News

Washington Capitals defenseman Rick Berry was issued a one game suspension for a spearing incident that occurred on Monday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This spearing incident against Martin Cibak — who was speared directly in the cup — led to two Tampa Bay goals on the ensuing 5 minute power play and was part of the reason the Lightning were victorious over the Capitals on Monday.

Berry will be docked a game check of $2,520.83. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund. The incident occurred during the third period of the loss to Tampa Bay. Berry was assessed a major penalty following his actions. The defenseman will miss Wednesday’s game against Carolina.

NHL.com News

Lightning acquire Helbling from Nashville

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – The Tampa Bay Lightning acquired defenseman Timo Helbling from the Nashville Predators on Wednesday for an eighth-round draft pick.

Well, the dealing obviously isn’t done then. I don’t know anything about this guy to be honest with the readers but Feaster and Barber know what they are doing — I hope.

Helbing will, if nothing more, help stock the Springfield Falcons when the Lightning take them over next season.

Martin St. Louis was voted by fans as the front runner on a TSN.ca poll. This shows that the Lightning forward is getting respect from not only the players around the league, but the fans as well. View the TSN.ca article on Robert Lang and Martin St. Louis’ rise.

It wasn’t long ago that a gritty-mite by the name of Darcy Tucker played in Tampa Bay in obscurity until being traded to the Maple Leafs where he became a known agitator (of fans and opposing teams) as well as a fan favorite.

CC NHL Weblog

Apparently John Tortorella went to the Mike Keenan School for Hockey Coaches. I am sure that Tortorella has many excellent coaching qualities – nobody gets hired to be one of the 30 NHL coaches without having a lot going for them – but I wouldn’t hire him as long as there was someone else who could skate and chew gum at the same time.

It is the difference between good human resource management and poor human resource management. How many successful managers in an office upbraid employees in front of others?

All this and so much more, inspired by Torts public criticism of John Grahame and Nikolai Khabibulin.

Alex Rodriguez trade made waves throughout professional sports — and overshadowed a Lightning-hot Bolts team in the national media — as his huge contract shifted from the Texas Rangers to the poster-boys of gluttony, the New York Yankees. The Yankees payroll this season is a fifth of a Billion Dollars and extra spending isn’t frowned upon by George Steinbrenner.

This is the bane of both Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

I won’t cry too many tears for the owners of the NHL, who have shown incompetence in their dealings and planning and marketing more than once, but when one team has a blank check to invest in players — it goes to the players heads and goes to the Players Union’s head. Sound economic models be damned — if this team can afford to pay a player this sum,.there must be plenty of money for owners to invest.

The warped logic of this is that the NHL is not the NFL, it’s not even the NBA. It is loved by North Americans from two countries but it is no economic juggernaut that can afford every team to pay players whatever they ask.

Though the high-spending Rangers didn’t achieve greatness by pulling out their billfold, they have hurt teams in the league by setting standards of pay rates for marquee players without so much as an afterthought what it does to the league. With no forced cap on spending, they — being in North America’s #1 media market — can spend whatever their heart desires and every other team in the league must play catchup.

I’m for a free market system – but something needs to be done so that one team does not horde everyone, and does not overspend to bring in any name that they chose. Of course, free agency and salary arbitration need to be fixed too to give the players a reason why they should even entertain the thought of a Collective Bargaining Agreement with a Salary Cap installed. A cap is a much more effective system than the “Salary Tax” installed by Major League Baseball which has failed to stop overspending by baseball clubs (the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are perfect examples). A cap, though it restricts the market as to where one can sign and for how much, helps the game remain economically plausible…. And what does an improved, economically stable and entertaining NHL do to a Salary cap? It raises the cap — lifting the owners boats as well as the players boats, so to speak — by bringing in more money that can be invested.

Of course, I expect Gary Bettman to screw the pooch negotiating this deal and Bob Goodenow to screw the sport by not wavering.

And in some ways, you can thank Alex Rodriguez for all of this. Different sport — but same failed economic system.

Jay Feaster will not make a lateral move and that means the future is not worth much to him in an effort to bring in a top forward to bolster the Lightning’s playoff push.

Speaking to Damian Cristordero of the St. Petersburg Times, “We’re certainly looking to improve the hockey team but whatever we would like to do, we would do it if we didn’t have to take anything out of the (locker) room.”

Meaning young talent only holds sway if it is on the current team roster.

There are many teams in the league and many teams in pro-sports that started their downfall by being over-willing to make the deals it would take to acquire a top player from another franchise looking to cut payroll and rebuild. The Lightning, trading of blue-chip prospect Alex Svitov, is tempting fate with making prospects and draft picks expendable. The worst case scenario is that a player who’s contract is up at year-end becomes a Bolt at the expense of a high round pick.

Stanley Cup be damned — a franchise needs to be stocked at all levels instead of just having the core players for a title run.

I know I am in the minority in this department — every fan wants someone brought in who will help get their team over the hump and put them over the top… Daryl Sydor’s acquisition was one of these such moves – giving the Lightning a top four defensiveman that they have sorely lacked for years. Sydor’s contract also has a good deal of time left on it, so that softens the blow of losing Svitov in the long run (and he was expendable with Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards taking the top two center roles), but how expendable should prospects in areas of weakness –the wings — be? How expendable should draft picks be?

Don’t give up on the future for the now. Having a team that is a perennial contender — though can the word “perennial” be used with the labor stoppage fast approaching, and an unknown CBA in the future? — is a much more responsible and exciting thing to watch than a one-hit wonder that wins the cup and has nothing to fall back on due to raiding their system for a winner now.

I didn’t see this one and can’t give individual assessment3 or team assessment, but Dave Andreychuk is on fire — having scored four goals in two games (three points in tonights effort). Vincent Lecavalier scored #21 on the season and Fredrik Modin, Cory Stillman, Ruslan Fedotenko and Martin St. Louis rounded out scoring for Tampa Bay

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 18 of 21 shots.

Inspired by Fire Glen Sather!.com

Welcome to FIREGLENSATHER.com!

We created this website to give New York Rangers fans a much needed voice in the disastrous frenzy that is the state of the New York Rangers. The Dolan family does not seem to care. Glen Sather is too arrogant to do what is best for the team. And, the media is too reserved in their criticism for fear that the individuals who should be the subject of a full-scale assault will refuse them interviews somewhere down the line.

So, it is our responsibility, as a fan base, to bring the appropriate issues to the forefront; to tell the organization how we feel; to take back the organization that the Dolans and Glen Sather have conspired to hold hostage since the very moment that each party entered the picture. Peruse the sight. Read all of the opinions and commentary and feel free to contribute a thought or an opinion. All sentiments are welcome.

There’s one thing that I can’t understand about the bitterness to Slats — how fans and the media have demanded that the Rangers bring in big names, and how that helped drive him to acquire the big names along with someone above him in the executive offices telling him to buy-buy-buy. For years you hear Rangers fans cooing over the possiblities with big name free agents and players that could be acquired… And after they are brought together at Madison Square Garden, what do they achieve besides having a super-large payroll? Absolutely nothing… Yet the fans and the media demand that the Rangers invest in so-and-so big name, they always have, and they don’t take the responsibility to see what kind of a mess they helped turn the Rangers franchise into.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I got no love for Glen nor the Ranger$… The thing is, just like the Mets, the team seems driven to bring in big names and sell off all prospects in order to win… And it backfires consistantly. You win for a shorter amount of time – and extremely small window of opportunity – when you do this. The Rangers consistantly have sold their soul for a winner, and their Stanley Cup drought over the years is evidence of this, just as the post-1994 drought is.

1994 was something that convinced them this system of buy-buy-buy, future-be-damned system works….

When was the last Ranger team that was dominated by home-grown talent instead of hired guns and acquired Superstars? You know, sorta like the slow-building of a certain southern hockey team that was the laughingstock of the league from 1997 through 2000?

Slather deserves some of the blame for not doing what he did in Edmonton and produce a winner on the cheap…. But some of the fans and execs deserve a portion of the blame, demanding big name stars instead of allowing the team time to grow.

The best thing that the Rangers could do is start clean and put together a 5 year plan…. It worked here in Tampa Bay, where we’ve got a ton of home grown talent (Kubina, Lecavalier, Richards, Clymer) to go along with the few free agents and no-name acquisitions over that 5 year span (Khabibulin, Grahame, St. Louis, Modin, Taylor, etc) to become a force in the East. It’d work for the Rangers if everyone wasn’t so desperate to win NOW and bring in every big name they can think of in order to do it.

One only has to look at the NHL’s average attendance charts to see why those of us in traditional markets remain skeptical about hockey’s future in the south.

Carolina dead last at 11,743. Nashville – challenging for the playoffs – at 12,506. Atlanta at 14,757, Florida at 15,543. All in the bottom half of the league officially.

And then you get into the fact that these teams – especially the Panthers – are notorious for inflating attendance figures.

As a comparison, the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL are averaging 7,330 for major junior hockey. This for players high school aged. It is concievable that Calgary, Ottawa (the OHL’s 67s) and London (the OHL’s Knights) all average more fans than a couple NHL team’s legitimately average. Especially the Hurricanes.

With this in mind, it is becomming more and more clear to observers that the non traditional expansion movement has failed. People are remembering that the size of the city doesnt create the market size. It’s the number of people willing to pay for the product. And this article suggests the pendulum is swinging back towards Canada:

So, dont be surprised if us Northerners are start acting more smug post-CBA if teams like Carolina and Florida pack up and leave markets where they were doomed to failure from the outset.

The Red Hot Lightning have cooled considerably the last two games, falling in an uninspired effort against the Buffalo Sabres.

The 4-3 OT Loss did give the Lightning a point but it did not aid the teams plans to move up to the 2nd or 1st seed in the Eastern Conference while the white hot Buffalo Sabres continued to move towards the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Dave Andreychuk regained his missing scoring touch, scoring twice. Corey Stillman scored in the clutch with 55 seconds remaining to tie the game and ultimately send it to overtime. John Grahame was less than stellar, giving up four goals on 26 shots.

The Lightning got the blues in St. Louis tonight, losing in OT 4-3 and being swept for the season by the Blues franchise. Taking a point from the game but still – leaving their pride under the gateway arch.

Corey Stillman, playing his first game in St. Louis since the Lightning acquired him on Draft Day 2003, had a goal and an assist to go along with an earlier goal that was waved off by the officials when the puck appeared to go off his hand and past goalie Chris Osgood.

Nikolai Khabibulin started in goal for the Bolts, giving up 4 goals on 29 shots — including the game winner to Doug Weight a minute and six seconds into the overtime period. Ruslan Fedotenko and Pavel Kubina scored the other Tampa Bay goals.

From TSN.ca – NHL

A financial audit of the Florida Panthers hockey team has raised “substantial doubt” about the long term future of the NHL franchise.

While the Office Depot Center generated a profit of $5.1-million after expenses last year, financial auditors Deloitte and Touche expressed concerns about the Panthers in a report submitted to Broward County on Tuesday.

The report shows Panthers Hockey LLP “incurred a net loss, had a working capital deficiency and had negative cash flows from operating activities” during the fiscal year which ended June 30, 2003.

Off the topic of the Lightning, I did want to pass on the news that Chris Thomas - former sports director at WFLA Newschannel 8, and radio personality , passed away from Cancer earlier today at University Community Hospital. He was 55.

For those not aware, there is an NHL site specifically devoted to the Collective Bargaining agreement at http://www.nhlcbanews.com/. There is information on the just-filed Levitt report along with understand the CBA links and CBA “By the Numbers” links….

The firesale in Washington continues as perennial Capital force, Peter Bondra, is shipped to the Ottawa Senators for prospect center Brooks Laich and a 2005 second-round pick.

The trade is a two pronged sword for the Lightning – a division rival has weakened itself by jettisoning their star. Meanwhile the Senators – a team the Bolts are chasing in the standings, have just improved themselves tremendously.

The battle for the Northeast Division in the Eastern Conference, along with the #2 seed in the Conference Playoffs, just got real interesting.

There are rumblings in the media that started yesterday and continue currently about Martin St. Louis and the League MVP award – the Hart Trophy.

Not only did the St. Peterburg Times Damian Cristordero add a piece on the possibility in his daily team news column, but other sources around the league are alluding to Martin’s plausible MVP nomination.

Start with ESPN.com’s summary about the Lightning not being satisfied with having the Southeast Division virtually locked up. Follow it up with USA Today’s Midterm Report that named St. Louis an MVP candidate and you have two very credible insitutions in US sports making mention of Mighty Marty.

TIm Taylor, Dave Andreychuk and Ben Clymer routinely shut down opponents top lines while the trio of forwards were on ice…

Now Taylor and Andreychuk will be doing it with Dmitry Afansenkov, who was promoted to the 3rd line. Afansenkov has played very well in his limited role as a 4th line grinder. His promotion may well set the stage fro a resumption of his scoring touch. Stay tuned….