As much as I’d like to, I can’t honestly offer much assurance that everything will ultimately be fine for the Tampa Bay Lightning after yesterday’s owner love-in with the commish. I
could actually, I suppose. And, really, I’d like to. But I get the feeling it wouldn’t do much in the way of calming down a palpably tense legion of Lightning fans. So I won’t, though I hold out hope that everything will, in fact, turn out alright.
What I can do, however, is urge you to look forward to Friday’s draft.
Sure, the unmistakable face of the franchise could very well be dealt that night but, you know what? Many of you are just going to have to come to grips with the fact that it is a very real possibility at some point between now and July 1st and that it would
not, in fact, be the end of the world. Hard to believe, I know.
Judging the pulse of the Lightning fan base over the last
year or so 24 hours, however, one might convince one’s self that the Mayans were a few years off on their doomsday prophecy. Via comments, emails and tweets lately, some of my local followers have openly threatened to bail on the team completely should such a trade actually happen. Others have informed me that, at the very least, they’ll rethink the renewal of ticket packages. And others still have mentioned something about swan dives off the Skyway Bridge – in jest, of course. (I think.)
To put this to bed for juuuuuuuuuuuust a moment (I wouldn’t dare ask for anything more right now) I’ll use a portion of one particular email sent to me yesterday as a point for (brief) debate:
“There is nothing good that can come out of trading Vinny Lecavalier. Period.”
Vincent Lecavalier is a supreme on-ice talent, an organizational icon, by all accounts a wonderful human being and as generous a contributor to the well-being of the Tampa Bay community as anyone could possibly ask for.
He is
not Wayne Gretzky (who, by the way, was traded –
twice).
It can happen and it just might – some time within the next week, to be specific, so brace yourselves. Just don’t say that
nothing positive would occur as a result. That’s just plain negligent.
If the decision is made to cut ties with the captain, I’m quite sure that
something about the return package will be at least reasonably encouraging to everyone. (I’d bet that even the guy at the town hall meeting who wanted Brian Lawton to commit to his resignation rather than trade Lecavalier would admit to as much.)
Hell, maybe it won’t happen after all but, either way, can’t we have just a
little collective faith? (A smidge?)
Again, go ahead and be excited about the draft itself. I expect the Lightning to draft twice in round one after flipping some sort of combination of seconds and thirds to bring back another first.
As for that first pick, after the New York Islanders take John Tavares first overall, well … Say hi to this guy:
There you go. Something to look forward to.
***
I have some outstanding emails to get to already for one last dip into the mailbag before draft day but, with two days to go, if there’s anything else you’d like me to address,
fire away. One final, pre-draft edition of
JJ’s Mailbag will hit early Friday.
Until then, have a look at the list of names for
the 2009 Lightning Young Guns Camp, to be held at The St. Pete Times Forum from July 8-15. (That's right! Even more to be excited about!)
Tentative 2009 Lightning Young Guns Camp Roster (2009 Draft Choices Not Included)
Goaltenders
Riku Helenius
Dustin Tokarski
Bryan Mountain
Defensemen
Mark Barberio
Erik Gustafsson
Scott Jackson
Vladimir Mihalik
Kevin Quick
Ty Wishart
Luke Witkowski
Forwards
Justin Courtnall
Kyle De Coste
Steve Downie
Mitch Fadden
Tommy Grant
Johan Harju
Denis Kazionov
Dimitri Kazionov
Alexander Killorn
Chris Lawrence
Matt Marshall
Matt Read
Juraj Simek
Paul Szczechura
Dana Tyrell
James Wright
JJ
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