On a day that saw the Chicago Blackhawks sign washed-up defenseman Nick Boynton, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Tomas Kaberle NOT get traded, and Mike Comrie’s weekend wedding all manage to make headlines, a much more important piece of hockey-related news went somewhat unnoticed: the Tampa Bay Lightning made Al Murray its new director of amateur scouting.
And Murray being hired by the Lightning would be big hockey news even on trade-deadline day. Why? Because it constitutes another move by general manager Steve Yzerman towards getting the Lightning back on the right track. Murray has an impressive resume, with 12 years as a scout with Los Angeles Kings under his belt, he’s also spent the last three years serving as the head scout for the men’s national teams.
Most fans are old enough to remember Canada’s dominance in the World Junior Championships that resulted in five-straight gold medals from 2005-2009 and a silver last season. Those that do are also sure to remember that Tampa Bay was the last team to win the Stanley Cup in the pre-lockout era, defeating the Calgary Flames in seven games in the 2003-2004 final.
But it was the end of the lockout that marked the demise of the Lightning, whose fall can be traced to the loss of goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, the loss Cory Stillman’s secondary scoring, the void in leadership created by the retirement of captain Dave Andreychuk, and the return of Vaclav Prospal (sorry Vinny, but your four years back with the Lightning saw the team fall from 92 to 66 points).
In 2010, owner Jeff Vinik’s house cleaning has yielded Yzerman as gm, fresh off his success as the head of Team Canada at the Vancouver Olympics, and with a deeper line up in turn. Gone are the years of treating the team like some loose aberration from a fantasy National Hockey League, and with it the years of a baffling five-goalie rotation. Gone too is the catastrophic leadership of Barry Melrose who was effectively traded for youthful head coach Guy Boucher and assistant gm Julien Brisebois, each coming off a successful season with the Hamilton Bulldogs organization of the American Hockey League.
The Lightning may not be poised to unseat the Washington Capital as the Southeast champions just yet, or even anytime during Alexander Ovechkin’s career, but they are poised to at least threaten for a playoff spot this year and help end its division’s reign as the joke of the NHL.
The defence has been completely revamped with Yzerman’s stamp of approval. Brett Clark and Pavel Kubina have been added to complement upstart youngster Victor Hedman and fellow Swede Mattias Ohlund. And while the goaltending of Mike Smith and Dan Ellis remains a question mark, they’re capable of forming a completive dynamic worthy of churning out a few more victories than losses.
The Lightning’s batch of forwards are perhaps the team’s weakest link. Because while the Lightning may not have a bona-fide top six, with Ryan Malone and Steve Downie constituting third-line options on the league’s better teams, boasting the likes of Vincent Lecavalier, Simon Gagne, Martin St. Louis, and 50-goal scorer Steven Stamkos is a good sign to say the least.
And now with Murray at the helm of the team’s amateur scouting efforts the future is clearly looking even brighter.
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