During the 2004-05 campaign — some people had a hard time seeing #5 out on ice. The had a hard time becuase they associated the number with former long-time Tampa defensiveman Jassen Cullimore, and the body under the #5 sweater was clearly not Jassen Cullimore.

They had problems because one of the usually suspects out on ice when a goal was given up, or a flippant mistake was made on defense, was #5. Daryl Sydor came to the Lightning to add defensive talent as well as playoff experience to the defensive corpse in 2004, and now his time in Tampa is over.

Having to make cap space for RFA signings, Jay Feaster dealt Daryl Sydor to the Dallas Stars on Sunday for a 4th round draft pick. It does leave a hole in the defensive squad, but it was a move that had to happen for (as already mentioned) financial reasons as well as play.

Jay Feaster told the St. Petersburg Times this morning that he was through dealing besides minor moves here and there and I believe him (though another salary dump is not out of the question — with Vaclav Prospal being the likely target). I believe this gives defensive prospects such as Mike Egener, Andy Rogers, Matt Smaby and others more hope if they plan to crack the Lightning roster in the pre-season.

I called it a night early last night after a whirlwind couple of days personally… So I totally missed news of the signing of Filip Kuba to a 3 year, nine million dollar contract…

he gem of Saturday’s acquisitions was Kuba, 29, who signed a three-year, $9 million contract. Like Kubina, Kuba is a native of the Czech Republic who played for the bronze-medal winning Olympic team.

Kuba (6-foot-3, 205 pounds) has compiled 139 points (34 goals) in 375 NHL games. He scored six goals and had 19 assists in 65 games with Minnesota this season, leading it in average ice time (21:46).

“We think that bringing him into our system, he can post even bigger numbers,” Feaster said. “For us, this is a complete, two-way defenseman, and at a price that when you look at what happened in the market today with defensemen, that’s very affordable.”

But beware, Lightning fans…

Feaster said the moves made by the Lightning during the past few days have nudged them “tight against” the $44 million salary cap, taking into account the six restricted free agents (Denis, Dmitry Afanasenkov, Evgeny Artyukhin, Ryan Craig, Ruslan Fedotenko, Cory Sarich) still to be signed.