Nothing to See Here - Just Some Pros Playing Table Tennis

Nice crowd - wonder who's taking side bets - photo from evan longoria's twitter feed

I think the boys are onto something. A celebrity Ping-Pong league. Just tour the country challenging other professional athletes in their respective cities.  It's gold, Jerry, GOLD!

I do enjoy how Longoria looks exactly like he does at third base when a pitch is thrown. Meanwhile, Martin St. Louis has the hand out for balance and looks like he's gonna snap that one by him on glove/paddle side.

Steve Yzerman - Keeping the Trade Deadline Interesting

If it’s game day, General Manager Steve Yzerman must be making a roster move.  This time, in a bit of twist, he actually added a player to the roster.  Former Penguin and Islander Tim Wallace is the newest Bolt having been claimed on waivers prior to Thursday’s match-up with the Winnipeg Jets.

TAMPA FAN LIKE FIGHT - photo from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Listed at 6’1” and 207 lbs. the native of Alaska (and former Alaskan All-Star teammate of Nate Thompson) brings some size to the Lightning.  According to my source in Pittsburgh (Hi Link!) he is physical but not the fastest skater.  That makes me wonder how he’ll adapt to Coach Boucher’s style of play which, quite frankly, requires a lot of skating.

One thing Wallace probably won’t be doing a lot of is scoring, as he’s racked up a scintillating 3 assists in his 55 game NHL career.  Then again, you never know with the Lightning.  Over the last two seasons Thompson has potted 17 goals compared to the 4 he had in his previous three seasons of play. Teddy Purcell has blossomed into a sniper and the recently departed Dominic Moore also saw his goal scoring increase when coming to Tampa.

The 27-year-old winger carries a $700,000 cap hit and is only signed through the rest of the season.  If he’s part of Mr. Yzerman’s rebuild, no make that remodel, of the club has yet to be determined.  At the moment he is an affordable forward with NHL experience.  It allows Mr. Yzerman to fill a roster spot without further depleting a Norfolk Admirals squad that is in the midst of a heated playoff race in the AHL.

Since 2011 there have been reports that Norfolk has been seeking to replace the Lightning (or Tampa Bay seeking to replace the Admirals depending on who is writing the article). Continuing to pull key contributors up to the big club isn’t the best way to smooth over a possible rocky relationship with your highest level affiliate. 

In the meantime the gradual reshaping of the Lightning continues.  The moves Mr. Yzerman has made and will possibly make up to Monday and then in the off-season have to be taken as a whole.  Trading a top –six forward for a draft pick isn’t the best deal until we find out what he does with that pick. Removing three key players from a team that is creeping closer to a play-off spot may not be wise in the short-term, but could keep the team competitive for the long run.

During an interview with Dave Mishkin after the Steve Downie trade the General Manager admitted that last year’s success put a bit of a crimp in his plans to build up the farm system and acquire young talent.  He turned down deals for future assets in order to pursue a shot at the Stanley Cup, a shot that fell short by one goal.

This year he’s taking those deals (and getting a lot of credit from the Canadian media, by the way).  What won’t be clear until the start of next season is, what his grand plan is in acquiring all of these high draft picks.  Will he bundle them together to move up?  Will he bundle them to acquire a young goaltender or a blueliner?  Or will he actually use them to draft players? Who knows, maybe he trades them all away to draft the NHL’s equivalent to Ricky Williams. I would pay $56 to see Mr. Yzerman pose with Nail Yakupov in a wedding dress on the cover of The Hockey News.

As of now he’s keeping his options open.  I doubt he’s openly shopping any of his players at this point, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t listening to offers.  It’s possible that if Rick Nash ends up in Los Angeles, Brian Burke puts a call in to Channelside and inquires as to what it will take to bring Ryan Malone to Toronto.

A lot of us on the sidelines think it’s easy to be a GM.  We often forget that it takes two to tango, and sometimes three if the third person has themselves a fancy No Trade Clause in their contract.  We don’t have to answer directly to an owner or calculate long-term salary cap implications on deals. It’s easy to trade somebody when we don’t have a budget (which for some teams is way lower than the cap) to answer to.

I’ve fired a couple of #trustinyzerman hash tags out over the Twitter machine in the last two weeks. One, because I love to make lame hash tag jokes on the internet; and secondly, he hasn’t given us any reason not to.  The vast majority of moves he’s made have made this team better.  Heck, given another year Ryan Shannon may actually contribute.

Ryan Shannon doing what he does best - not scoring. Mike Carlson, Reuters

Two weeks ago I wrote that the Lightning were entering the most important stretch of their season.  They responded by going 4-2-1 and creeping a few points closer to the eighth and final play-off spot. They also lost their captain for at least three weeks with a broken finger, their best player’s best friend and line-mate, a top four defenseman and a solid defensive forward.  Oh and their mascot got fired.

This team isn’t better than it was two weeks ago, but it is on the path to being better next season.  We all just have to Trust In Yzerman.

It just isn't right, man. Michael Martin NHLI/Getty

All Good Things Must End

The Lightning and The Deadline - I Name Names

"We traded who? Is he on my line? No. Ok. I'm going to go score a goal now."

It’s time to light the fires on one of the best weeks in the NHL.  Well, the best week that doesn’t involve playoff games, that is.  From now until the 27^th phone bills around the league are skyrocketing as general managers try to find the final pieces for their playoff teams. Or, teams that are out of the race look for the building blocks for next season.

The Lightning are occupying the nebulous area in between the two right now.  They currently stand six points out of the eighth and final playoff spot with at least a game in hand on everyone they’re chasing.  The problem is that there are a bunch of teams that they are chasing. Including the eighth-spot Maple Leafs there are five teams within six points (and two more seven points out).  That’s a close race.

It’s closer than last week when Steve Yzerman admitted he was looking for the future instead of this season as the deadline approached.  His actions echoed his words as he was able to move Dominic Moore to the San Jose Sharks for a 2^nd round pick and Pavel Kubina to the Flyers for a conditional 2^nd round pick (either this draft or 2013), a 4^th round pick and a John Kalinski. 

What a John Kalinski looks like.

Mr. Yzerman turned two unrestricted free agents into three draft picks and a fringe prospect.  That isn’t too shabby. I like Kubina, but he doesn’t fit the defensive mold that he and Coach Boucher have been looking for in their two seasons in Tampa Bay.  If you take a look at who’ve they’ve brought in they’ve all been younger, puck-moving defensemen.  The only exception left on the roster right now is Brett Clark, and not to foreshadow the rest of the column, I wonder if he’ll still be here in a week.

What hasn’t been mentioned too much in the press about these moves, is that the Lightning saved a little over $1 million in real salary.  Even with owner Jeff Vinik raising the team’s payroll over the last two seasons, they still have to be careful with their money.

 Attendance has been steady this year despite the team’s struggles (ESPN has them ranked 13^th in home attendance averaging 18,334 fans per contest).  With a notorious fickle fan base, throwing in the towel could see a drop in fans showing up which could hurt the team financially.  Saving a little bit of money while stocking future assets is a win/win for the organization.

I’ve thought for awhile that this team hasn’t performed to the level of a playoff team.  Even if they do leapfrog the teams in front of them, they still look like first round fodder for the Rangers or Flyers.  Even with the better play of late they’re struggling to make up ground.  It seems when they win, so does everyone else around them. 

With the team winning twice since Mr. Yzerman began his team transformation he has backed off his fire-sale mentality and said that he’ll let the team on the ice play out the year.  Which to me means, he doesn’t have anything pending and if nothing pops up he has no problem waiting till the summer to finish refurbishing the squad.

However, I don’t think he’s ignoring the phone.  Kubina and Moore were probably the top two assets on his trade list, but that doesn’t mean he is currently out of bullets.  From surfing the web and seeing what other teams are looking for, here are the players that I think could still move:

-          Adam Hall – a solid defensive center with face-off skills. He could fill a role a roll for a team looking for depth.

-          Brett Clark – he’s not flashy, but he blocks a lot of shots and can fill in on the power play occasionally.

-          Ryan Malone – the name drawing the most chatter, but I think his health history might keep some teams away.

-          Mathieu Garon – my dark horse trade candidate.  Say the Kings move Jonathon Bernier for offense, it wouldn’t be impossible to think they might pick up Garon as insurance against injury.

Overall, I think the trade deadline will be quiet this year due to two factors.  One, so many teams are in contention there aren’t that many big name potential free agents available.  Secondly, with an uncertain future in regards to the CBA, GM’s might be wary of taking on a long term contract.

I’ll still be following along, trying to weed out the fake twitter accounts (hint, check number of followers and previous tweets) and reading between the lines. 

Your Steve Downie Photo of theWeek - Steve Downie Goal Scorer

Catching Up On Some Trades (Non-NHL Edition)

It goes without saying that the card trading folks in this here blog-o-sphere are, without question, some of the most generous traders out there.  I’m a little behind on my trade posts, much like I’m behind on just about everything in life (well except for the rent).  So let’s see if we can rectify that over the next week or so.  Especially since I have a couple more of deals in the hopper now that Zistle is back up an running.

Back in the month of January, back when we here in Chicago thought winter might still hold something nasty for us, I was contacted by Kyle over as JABOS.  He actually liked something on one of my 200 trade bait posts and wanted to know if I’d be willing to send them his way in exchange for some 1983 Topps.

Without a doubt I was interested. …. Side note - John Cena just uttered my favorite sentence of 2012, “I lost a bro-ski for a ho-ski”….yes I occasionally tune into the random wrestling broadcast.  Yes, the Duchess makes fun of me for it.  I’m not quite sure which ranks higher on her, “My boyfriend is a 35-year-old-teenager” list.  Probably the wrestling.  At least with the cards I’ve brought a little cash into the house.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the level of interest in getting rid of some 2010 Trade Bait. It was high.  So after a couple of emails the trade was on! I but the cards in the good ol’ yellow envelope and sent them on their way.  Twelve minutes later I promptly forgot about it.  Hey, I have a short attention span. It’s amazing I can type 500 words about one topic at a time.

So imagine my surprise when this showed up in my lobby.

Best part of not working - not having to wear shoes

OK. So it was actually sealed, but still it was a box!  A box of cards! He wasn’t kidding when he said he had a large bunch.

My netbook is BPA free- cause the sticker says so!

Five stacks of pure cardboard greatness. 

I was so excited to enter the cards in the database!

Thanks to Kyle’s generosity I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project.  Which, of course, means I’ll just move onto another quest.  Maybe the 1976 set?

The One Where I Piggy Back A Post Off of a Real Website

Welcome to a new, and hopefully reoccurring, part of this blog. The fine folks over at Raw Charge (The Internet’s Bestest Place for All Things Lightning Related) have been posting a question of the week for some time now.  I’m not sure how long, definitely not as long Vinny’s 20-goal streak but longer than Niklas Sundstrom’s Lightning career.

 I’ve occasionally commented on their questions, but have always wanted to have a platform to expound upon my thoughts.  Then I remember that I had a blog.  Not only that, but a blog that sometimes even mentioned the Lightning. So with Chief-Raw Charger-Officer’s blessing I’ll be posting my thoughts (no matter how incoherent they are) on the weekly question.  He did make me promise not to call anyone mollycoddles or Johnny Bum’s so that might limit my quest to bring those words back into vogue, but that’s neither here nor there.

This week’s question: “What ONE thing would you go back andchange before the start of the season?”

Of course, Mr. Fontana would echo my thoughts with his answer – keeping Cedric Desjardins in the organization.  Allowing the Boucher-approved net minder to leave for rockier pastures of Colorado thinned out the Lightning’s stable of NHL-ready goaltenders.  Which is something that would have been nice with the pre-season number one allowing almost 4 goals a game and his counterpart proving that he can’t really handle the workload of a number one puck stopper.

So instead I’m going to say that if I was granted one very specific Lightning related wish I would have sent Brett Connolly back to his junior team this season.  I know, I know I’ve argued that he belonged with the team at the beginning of the season and heck, just the other day I twittered, tweeted, twitted that he could be the recipient of more playing time now that Dominic Moore is a Shark (Hmmm….in a future Winnipeg/San Jose match-up will they have the cojones to have a “Dress as your favorite ‘West Side Story’ character” night?).

Back when Connolly and the Lightning Power Play could score.  Photo from AP.

However, I’ve come to change my mind.  Seeing the difference in his play from earlier in the season to now makes it almost obvious that he wasn’t ready to be a factor for an NHL team.  After starting the season averaging almost 13 minutes of ice-time a game he hasn’t played more than 9 minutes a game since January 7^th. In those 15 games since the 7^th he has one assist and hasn’t scored a goal since November 17^th against Pittsburgh (Ha. Suck it Penguins’ fans!)

He’s been a scratch of the healthy variety several times since the calendar has flipped to 2012. It’s obvious that Coach Boucher isn’t at the point where he’s comfortable having the young winger on the ice during critical parts of the game.

His slump should help me acquire this card at a reasonable price. Bonus!

This doesn’t mean I think he’s a bust, or a dud if you prefer Lightning historical nomenclature.  The Campbell River native’s performance on the big stage of the World Juniors proved that he can perform against the best in the world; he just needs a little more seasoning to elevate his game in the NHL.

Would he have gotten that seasoning by spending a year in a league that he dominated in previously? That’s hard to say, but another year would have allowed the 19 year-old to put on more weight and become stronger.  Very few players can come into the league under the age of 20 and be effective. There is just such a tremendous difference in the speed and size of the players that it is hard to overcome, plus you can’t even enjoy a beer with your teammates after a hard-fought victory.  They still do that, right? Sit around the clubhouse and crack open a Molson or two while their various cuts get stitched up.  I like to think they do.

Next season will be a big test for Connolly.  He’ll have to earn his spot on the club especially with young prospects such as Carter Ashton and Cory Conacher knocking on the door.  Connolly has shown that he is willing to play physically, whether it’s crashing the net or going into the corners to battle for the puck. That’s going to be the biggest factor for him staying in the league. If, and it’s always a big if when talking about prospects, he can take it to the next level and finish the opportunities he creates.

He has undoubtedly learned a lot by being in the NHL, but with 20/20 hindsight, I think his days (if not his bank account) would have been better off in juniors for one more season.

Yea! New Through-the-Mail!

Apparently the secret to getting my through-the-mail autographs back is to go stand in line for a free autograph.  For the second time in a row, within days of getting a free in-person autograph of a Chicago Blackhawk Hall of Famer I've gotten an envelope in the mail with my mailing label on it.

Unfortunately, for the first time I've suffered some damage on the return shipping.  It appears that the athlete put the card back in the penny sleeve before the ink dried on the card AND neglected to include the toploader on the return shipping as well.  Oh and I don't think they actually sealed the envelope.

But hey I still got an autographed card and it's a member of the Lightning.

Love the look of Heroes and Prospects

That's right, it's Teddy Two-Goals!  Or Two-Time Teddy. Or Teddy Two-Step.  Or whatever I call him on twitter when he scores a goal.

As you can you see, some of the Sharpie rubbed off on the penny sleeve and the signature itself is a bit smudges.  Of course, some of it is my fault.  I didn't prep the card at all, thinking that the ITG Heroes and Prospects set didn't have that high of a gloss on it.  My bad.

Still, to add a Teddy Purcell autograph to my collection is a plus.  If he hadn't signed a two-year deal before this season, chances are he'd be on the trade block for the Bolts along with Pavel Kubina and the recently departed Dominic Moore. 

Purcell was a deadline pickup for the Lightning in 2010 as Tampa Bay sent Jeff Halpern to Los Angeles for the young winger.  Last season was a bit of a breakout for Purcell,  as he potted 17 goals and 51 points for the Bolts. A slick skater with a sneaky quick snapshot Purcell has 14 goals this year and is showing that he is a valid secondary scoring option for the sometimes punchless Tampa squad.

He would be even more potent if he shot the puck more, but playing on a line with Steven Stamkos kind of prevents that from happening.  Anytime you are on the same line as the best shooter in the NHL you tend to defer to him whenever possible. 

Thanks for sending the card back Teddy!