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.

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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.