As reported here a few weeks back a group led by a former NHL executive has indeed purchased a team in Florida. My sources told me at the time to keep the names off the record for obvious reasons, but I was quite excited by the fact that Doug MacLean was coming back to hockey.

Doug MacLean's Absolute Hockey Enterprises is buying the Tampa Bay Lightning and keeping the team right where it is.

Doug and I have had our disagreements for sure, but when he was fired from Columbus I let it be known to him and on the blog that hockey would miss him. You see, Absolute Hockey is the perfect name for his group. He is as passionate about hockey as any executive I have ever talked to. And with passion comes controversy and strong opinions. And a person who is not afraid to speak his mind. And that starts debate and we all win. (It is not always a bad thing to have people debating about you I have found.)

And what is wrong with that? For all the great and gentlemen people in this sport, give me a guy with passion and opinion any day of the week. This sport needs more of that, which is why this sport needs to give Jim Blackberry an expansion team in Ontario and Bruckheimer a team in Vegas. And if we get Cuban to buy a team we should.

Doug MacLean has had this group together for some time now, and people around Doug knew that he was crawling out of his skin to get back in the game. Now he is and it is on his terms.

Doug was a big reason the Panthers got off to an amazing start as a franchise and he built a team in Columbus that probably is the biggest casualty of the lockout. The Jackets are still a solid team but right before the lockout they were starting to gel. I am fairly confident if there wasn't a lockout we wouldn't be able to say the Jackets haven't been to the playoffs in their history.

Last season I went at Doug pretty hard for some stuff he said about Zherdev during the negotiations. Although I still don't feel he should have maybe said it the way he did, time has proven MacLean was right about Zherdev and I was wrong.

So Doug is back and that can only mean that the Lightning just got a lot more personality and that never hurts. Especially for people like me.

Cammalleri

The first email I got about Cammalleri's ruling came from one of my favorite XM Home Ice personality Jim "Boomer" Gordon:

"Arbitration is a farce!"

The first domino may be that Steve Weiss may remain a Panther. The Parise and Cammalleri rulings are going to get the Weiss contract done relatively quickly.

The next Domino will be in Toronto....

and that is what I am working on right now...

3:00 pm...Cam Reaction


I am putting the final tweaks to the remaining UFAs that are out there...and it is very interesting due to the fact that the Cammalleri ruling was much lower than expected..."There are a few deals that could now happen, including Kubina to LA."

There were also teams lining up to try and get Cammalleri if the Kings couldn't afford him and now they are going to have to look elsewhere. I am going on XM at 5:50 pm to discuss the remaining UFAs in light of all of this.

I am compiling them now...so stay tuned.

Join the Discussion: » Comments » Post New Comment

» Previewing the BEST UFA Left Wingers....My Favorite May Surprise You.

» Panarin Suspension? Quinn Fired In San Jose; Buzzcast at 3pm

» UFA Season Starts Now. Top Five Centers.

» Four Games on Monday: Who Are Your Picks? Mon's Buzzcast

» Home Teams Ruling the Day. Will It Continue? [email protected]. UFA's Tomorrow.