Recent Sports News:Lightning owners earn themselves a second honeymoon
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On Friday, they acquired the best defenseman in the draft.
On Wednesday, they acquired one of the best defensemen in free agency.
By Thursday, the folks running the Lightning had acquired credibility.
Yeah, we didn’t see that one coming either. Particularly after the events, rumors, back-stabbings and tattling of recent weeks.
And, let’s face it, there is still a decent chance the Lightning brass will squander that goodwill by the time the summer has ended. But, at least, today, there is a sense of stability. At least there is the appearance of all hands rowing in one direction. At least these guys made it look like they were listening when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman did his marriage counseling gig last week.
What the events of this week have done is give you hope. Hope that the ownership group won’t implode like a room of Naimolis. And hope that the 2009-10 season may be Tampa Bay’s most interesting since Nikolai Khabibulin left town.
It is premature to say the Lightning is a good team, but there is little doubt that it is a better team. The Lightning could use more depth among the forwards, and is in need of a backup goaltender, but you no longer look at the defense and see a bunch of pushovers.
Free agent defenseman Mattias Ohlund is not just an upgrade, he is immediately the best blue liner the Lightning has had since Dan Boyle. Maybe even longer. And 18-year-old Victor Hedman is the franchise’s best prospect on defense in years. And, with his no-trade clause kicking in on Wednesday, Vinny Lecavalier is guaranteed a home in Tampa Bay for as long as he wants one. All in all, this may be the Lightning’s best week since 2004.
Perhaps more important than the actual acquisitions is the appearance of a steady hand. General manager Brian Lawton says he is the only one making personnel decisions these days, and you hope that is no exaggeration. The problem is the folks running the Lightning have offered so much disinformation that is hard to have complete faith in anything they say these days. You would like to believe they are all back on one page, but they have a lot more proving to do before you should hand over your trust again.