“We’re tight with our guys. We’re not looking to give them away. If people are going to make meaningful offers to move this organization forward, we will act. But we won’t act for the sake of acting. We’re going to make deals if they make sense for the organization.”

–Brian Lawton, General Manager.

With the track record of OK (not really) Hockey, I can’t say I believe Mr. Lawton one iota. Especially after reading that he plans on being at the office at 6 A.M tomorrow morning.

Deals will be done, trades will be made, and the only place they make sense will be on paper. Or, the wise moves will be the small ones that don’t seem to have significance until later on when a young player grows into his role… The Lightning under Koules/Barrie/Lawton have a habit of going with the former: great on paper, lousy on ice. The latter would require a long term blue print that does not sacrifice the nucleus of the roster.

Sports columnist Gary Shelton at the St. Petersburg Times says in eloquence the point worth remembering (for Lightning fans) with the Lecavalier tradewind/storm that has swept up:

It is as simple as this. Fans trust Vinny Lecavalier a great deal, and they don’t trust the new ownership at all.

Around here, Lecavalier is not only the face of a franchise, he is the faith. In the chaos of a season, he is the reason to keep watching.

He is the reason to think things might eventually get good again.

That, in essence, is the point in fan outcry against this supposed trade talk. It’s not a foreign subject for Lightning fans to see high quality players sent packing during down years in order to try to improve the roster. Yet in those down years, it was usually a marginal fan favorite sent away for a long term investment (or a short sighted solution) in return.

And OK Hockey has been all about the short-sighted solution sus-far, or so it seems. Lets secure Dan Boyle… Wouldn’t it be cooler if we traded him though? Lets bring in Barry Melrose and jazz up management and… oh, wait, he hasn’t coached in a decade and look at the monstrosity of incapability he is displaying…

A Lecavalier trade, to me, would be comparable to sending Mario Lemieux packing from the Pittsburgh Penguins instead of Jaromir Jagr in the July 2001 trade… The face of the franchise, the figurehead… hell, the team owner for Christ sake. Mario had saved the franchise when he was drafted. He won Stanley Cups with the Pens, he literally saved hockey in Pittsburgh again by purchasing the Pens…

Some would say Lecavalier joining the Lightning (along with so many other cogs that have come and gone since 2004) accomplished the same in Tampa Bay. A perennial loser became a contender on his watch, and a champion on his watch. A derelict franchise was rebuilt and renewed with thanks to the hope and faith that Vincent brings to roster day in and day out.
Read it all..

For the last ten seasons, there has been a constant dogging Tampa Bay Lightning hockey. Through the tortured days of the late 1990’s through a Stanley Cup championship and back again to the dregs of mediocrity, one chorus has sung itself silly every season. Every season with or without basis.

Vincent Lecavalier to Montreal.

There was the disrespect factor to begin, as Vinny entered the NHL in a non traditional market. Tampa Bay was the joke of the league and of course, fans from Canada treated the Lightning as the joke they were while making up all sorts of preposterous trade scenarios for Vincent’s services.

As the lean years of Lightning hockey pressed on, some of those rumors weren’t based off desire to mock Tampa as so much save Vincent from the lowest of low rungs of the NHL. “He deserves better than that” were the sympathies being sent to the player (but of course, not the hockey fans suffering in Tampa Bay. After all, it’s a non traditional market. Who could care?).

Even with the Lightning on the up and up in 2002-2004, ventures to Canada in December resulted in the same rumors year after year: Lecavalier wants out, Lecavalier’s not happy.

That’s why I don’t get too concerned about Vincent-Lecavalier-to-Montreal rumors that have sprung up today. Vinny-for-Garbage-because-he’s-our-favorite-francophone; the cliché offerings of mediocrity that are supposed to seem all worldly.

Oh, don’t get me wrong — I am concerned about Vincent Lecavalier trade rumors in general right now as I lack faith in OK Hockey to make moves that make sense. Keeping the core intact and building around them imperative. But as I noted earlier today in a post, volatility has ruled the first half of the Lightning season.

And I’ll say this as bluntly and openly as I can and hope to high hell someone with management and ownership actually reads this blog: If you guys seriously want to fuck up your investment in this franchise, trade Lecavalier. If you’re more concerned about how happy you are with the club’s makeup than how well you’re drawing at the arena — by all means, trade him for shit being rumored and continue on your directionless trek through the NHL.

It never fails that the Vinny-to-Montreal rumors surface… But the dealings of OK Hockey make me weary that something may happen that ruins the fragile stability that currently resides with this team. And the only thing worse than this would be to wreak havok on the stability of the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise in general by making a move with Vincent.

How many people are looking forward to the Winter Classic this year?
[poll id=55]

While we’re at it, of the three teams at the top of the Southeast division standings, who’s best poised to win the division? (still a long way to go on that one, anything can happen, but consider it a “what if” question):
[poll id="54"]

And seeing I asked this question last summer but got such a low participation turnout, I’ll ask again for impressions of OK Hockey, owners of the Lightning. Yes, it’s a loaded question but I might as well ask:
[poll id=49]

Feel free to use the comments to voice opinions on any of the above topics.

Mike Chen can’t look away at the train wreck here in Tampa, and who can blame him? Ooh, blame… Good subject for an article Mike! Have at it!

The real culprit? I can see why people can point fingers at one guy or another (though Stamkos is absolved of everything other than simply being an 18-year-old rookie learning the ways of the NHL) but when it comes down to it, everyone is at fault here from the wacky ownership duo of Len Barrie and Oren Koules to Melrose and his then-assistants to veteran leaders like team captain Vincent Lecavalier.

Yep, you’re all guilty and you should feel bad because the fan base that slowly built up from the early 2000s is now disintegrating as the team becomes one of the biggest sideshows in professional sports.

Mike goes on to break down the X’s and D’oh’s of the Lightning, post-Palace Sports, like an ESPN analyst without a bone to pick with a former employer. Blame lies from the top down, and from the bottom up. As a fan, I’ve focused on the top-down side instead of looking at the players, the lock room and the atmosphere generated by team leaders…

Just to tickle my fancy on the blame heirachy, lemme highlight the one paragraph that stands out for me:

The thing that I don’t get is that even though moviemaking (Koules) and real estate (Barrie) are completely separate businesses than running a pro-sports franchise, the basic tenants of “get good people/have a plan/work hard” are still in place. Here’s how any organization, pro sports or otherwise, should work: leadership at the top has a vision and a plan. They bring in supervisors (coaches) to create strategy for that plan, then the supervisors motivate the workers (players) to properly execute the plan with a good attitude and strong work ethic while providing feedback about what’s working and what’s not. I don’t see any of this here.

Some people really hated Palace Sports ownership… I mean, seriously despised “Dollar” Bill Davidson and outside-the-area ownership. They didn’t care for Rick Dudley or the types of players he brought in at the get-go of Palace Sports tenure of ownership.

But — this is inarguable — Davidson, Tom Wilson, Bill Campbell and the rest of Palace Sports had a plan and a vision of all facets of the operation. On ice, the venue, the administrative organization… They assigned a well-versed individual into a role and let them work.

With OK Hockey? It’s been anarchy without a general MO of the moves, without a definition of the how or why.

Mike goes on to dissect coaching and then throwing some blame the players ways… Not everyone, just the C and A’s of the team. The article is certainly worth a read and a thought or three.

In essence, it comes back to the volatility of the off season as a foreshadowing of the season so far. A new administration does indeed have a right to put who they want in positions of power… But these people need to know what the plan is, spread the plan down the chain of command and get everyone on message and in sync on that.

Right now, we’re still devoid of that vision / message from any level of command.

…which has contributed to the Bolts being run straight into the ground.

“This is futile,” the text message from my buddy Bill read. “They get one a minute in and they’re done. It’s like the Ludzik days all over again….Every time I watch, there are a couple of new numbers out there on the ice.”

Bill is no casual fan… He’s been through the times of despair, times of hope and times of glory when it comes to the Lightning. He may not be a season ticket holder but he’s as committed to the team as anyone else out there… And he’s been there since the start.

And this is part of the reason why there is so much distress out there among Lightning fans. No one is going to swoop in and save the team (even if OK Hockey thinks adding more offense is going to change things). The chemistry has turned to mud and the focus on the roster was on numbers and reputation more so than how well pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Bill’s venting brought back memories of the end of the 1990’s as Palace Sports started their ownership tenure with a cast of has-beens, cast-offs, never-were’s, and yet-to-be’s:

(the 1999-2000 TBL roster and stats from HockeyDB)

1999-2000 Roster

I kept looking at the roster and seeing grim reminders of days past. The former Detroit Viper trifecta of Stan Drulia, Dan Kesa and Ian Herbers for example…

Drulia, Kesa, Herbers…
Drulia, Kesa, Herbers…?
Drulia, Kesa, Herbers… Oh my!
Drulia, Kesa, Herbers… Oh my!
Drulia, Kesa, Herbers, OH MY!

Note, that wasn’t a chant of endearment…

But the grim difference between that roster and this one is that Palace Sports refused to spend much to begin with, with the Lightning, and focused on player development and roster moves. Some panned out over time and some didn’t… But enough panned out that Lord Stanley’s cup was secured in five seasons of play.

You didn’t expect a roster where the one constant was mediocrity… Where the head coach’s experience was the IHL level (and dumping in the puck seemed to be the only attempt at offensive gameplay). To think that the 2008-09 roster is currently made up of a plathora of big names, big contracts and similar production numbers (what production?) seems like a sick joke.

In the 1998-99 offseason, as Rick Dudley took over General Management duties of the Lightning from Jacques Demers, Demers is supposed to have told Dudley the sick truth. “There’s nothing in the system, the cupboard is bare.”

That quote was part of the hopelessness of 1999-2000 and the promise of days ahead. While Dudley has been shit upon by fans for his perchance to acquire soft Euro’s and Russians, he did put together a majority of the roster that would go on to win the Cup. He did (as he so often liked to chirp about) go about collecting assets yet again.

The only focus of the 2008-09 Tampa Bay Lightning franchise is at the top of the pops. The NHL Team… and with a roster of names (if not roles), the team’s performance compares directly to this franchise’s darkest days when it had nothing at all.

The Lightning went on to win 19 games in 1999-2000 (19-54-9-7 54 points). The current pace — 6-13-8 in 27 games, 20 points — is 18.

Barry Melrose, Rick Tocchet… It doesn’t matter right now. Thus Steve Ludzik is on our minds, but the promise and hope that better days are ahead seems absent.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have fired head coach Barry Melrose; Associate Coach Rick Tocchet has been elevated to interim head coach.

Is there anyone, anyone at all, at OK Hockey interested in stability? Cohesion? I can understand a sense of urgency, but when urgency and immediate dividends are all that’s looked upon with a sports franchise… well, it becomes just a fantasy-sports-franchise, playing in reality.

Dan Boyle? Given a big contract and long term commitment last spring. Traded for Carle and more last summer…
Carle? Trade for spare parts.
Tortorella? Fired in favor of Melrose and his old school style (and mullet).
Melrose? Fired two months into his return to NHL coaching. 2 months that were preceded by a short and volatile training camp that took place on two continents and in an extremely short duration.

People have joked about the idea of Melrose being the new head coach when the rumors started swirling last spring. So maybe this should be looked at as the correction of a mistake. But honestly, it looks more like a continuing guessing game at Times Palace… Where no one is sure of the next move; what it should be and what it should bring

I don’t know how far and wide this has carried since I saw it first mentioned in a St. Petersburg Tiems article last week, but Vincent Lecavalier wants to stay in Tampa. That isn’t news (though our friends in the province of Quebec would tell us otherwise)

What is news is Kent Hughes telling the world it’s not a short term deal. It’s a long one. To paraphrase: rest of his career.

And nwo Erik Erlendsson at the Tribune gets a money quote from Vincent:

Despite a pending change in ownership and a certain change in head coaches, Lecavalier said he intends to discuss signing a long-term deal that could keep him with Tampa Bay his entire career.

“I want to. I just think they want to wait to be officially in charge before we talk about it,” Lecavalier said Tuesday. “I’m looking forward to the new owners. They have a passion for the game. Oren Koules and Len Barrie have played the game. I’m encouraged about the new owners, and I’m excited about things.”

There’s no time line. There’s only the talk…

And right now I am still wondering what to make of the direction of the Lightning, as they transition to OK hockey from Palace Sports.