This is stupid.

So stupid, in fact, I compare it to the old joke about a little boy who goes to school with a five dollar bill. He brags to his friend he has one five dollar bill and is offered three one dollar bills in trade. “Three is more than one!” the friend tells the first boy.

And the kid makes the trade. And throughout the day he keeps trading down like that for more of less.

In the frustrating days of the late 1990’s and early Double-Oh’s – you saw just this happen in trades. Something great traded for more of less. For a team rebuilding, it sort of made sense. While there were hits, there were more misses and that was why fans were not endeared to Rick Dudley…

But when the dominoes started to fall on the more-of-less in this situation, we started with a top pair defensiveman (Dan Boyle), traded him for a young up and coming D-man and a first rounder (Matt Carle), then traded Carle for Eminger and trash-considerations in Steve Downie…

And now we get Noah Welch and a 3rd rounder for Eminger…? You’ve traded Dan Boyle for Welch and a 3rd rounder (after dealing away the draft pick already for a sub-par D-man)??

This is insane.

And I apologize profusely to Noah Welch. I apologize for coming down on him indirectly like this when I have never seen him play and don’t know his future. I apologize to him because this post comes off like a judgment about his abilities when in fact, it’s a judgment of the braintrust (I use that term as loosely as possible) of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And then again, he just became a piece of one of the most jumbled puzzles of transactions in NHL history. That’s not his fault. That’s the fault of the upper brass who don’t seem to want the fans to understand what they are doing. I’m not talking cliché “happy to have him on the roster and he has great abilities” talk. I’m talking big-picture direction of the franchise talk… What’s-the-plan-going-forward talk. Talk that’s been missing while each and every roster move causes more anxiety, and every lingering rumor seems akin to a bad dream.

As the holiday season has passed it’s apex, maybe so has the downfall of the Lightning franchise? One could hope, right?

Two wins in a row… I believe that’s a season high, and shows you how horribly the Lightning have played this year. None the less, it’s two positives for this team which has been surrounded by negatives for far too long.

I took the win at Pittsburgh Tuesday Night as a gift — the Penguins have all the firepower it shoudl take to render the Lightning dead on arrival. Instead, the Penguins played Tuesday’s game as if they were already on vacation. Why be bothered with such a thing as winning a should-win match-up with the bottom dwellers of the NHL?

And last night’s game at Sunrise versus the Florida Panthers was a spirited effort with an ugly constant from the season sus far — a regulation collapse leading to overtime and the shootout. All too often this season, the Lightning have found themselves in this situation — defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, perhaps.

Yet, what happens? With a shootout lineup that is not the top-heavy lineup that so often rears it’s head (Lecavalier, St. Louis, and insert-name-here), we get Hall-Jokinen-Artyukhin and Ryan Malone in the four rounds that it takes to secure the win.

As a result, at least for a night, the Lightning are no longer at the very bottom of the standings. 27 points puts them ahead of the Islanders among the league’s 30 teams. The St. Louis Blues and the Ottawa Senators are the next teams in the standings the Lightnign could very well pass on the road to redemption if this season high carries over into the new year.

Johan Holmqvist starts in net tonight for the Lightning against Florida…

…

Let me say it again, maybe this will register for some of your die hards and some of you non-die-hards. Johan Holmqvist starts in net tonight versus the Florida Panthers. In six games versus the Kitties in 2006-07, he was 1-2 with a 4.88 GAA and a .841 save percentage. Do I need to go on? To put it shortly, Johan was a disaster versus the Panthers for one reason or another. Versus numerous opponents last year, he looked fine if not great in net. But when it came to the Panthers it wasn’t the greatest performance that he could put up… And that’s putting it lightly.

18 Goals allowed and 113 shots faced in six games. That’s only close to 19 shots a game for the mathematically challenged. That’s unacceptable.

But here we are, it’s a new season, a new start… Will Johan make the most of this tonight or will we see Marc Denis getting his first action of the season to spell Holmer? I’m hoping for the former and fearing the latter. I made a big deal about the Lightning playing a division rival on Saturday and this is just as big… Division rival trying to reverse it’s losing ways with a new backstop with a reputation all his own. If the Lightning fall into the same trap as last year against the Panthers, this could end badly.

That’s why I’m wariest about Holmer regressing into 2006-07 form for tonight.