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A Year Doomed From The Start

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 7, 2008

TAMPA - In a sometimes slow procession that often extends past the allotted time, Tampa Bay players will file through the offices of Lightning coach John Tortorella and General Manager Jay Feaster today at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon for their annual end-of-the-year exit meetings.

It might as well serve as a funeral march on a Lightning season that ended sooner than any other in the past six years. It will officially end a season in which Tampa Bay was at the bottom of the league standings for the third time in franchise history, snapping a string of four consecutive seasons with a playoff berth.

Unlike previous years, however, when the Lightning finished at the bottom, this season was difficult to swallow because of the expectations surrounding the team when training camp opened almost seven months ago.

For Marty St. Louis, whose 25 goals were his lowest output since 2001-02 when he scored 16 in 53 games, it was the toughest season to endure of his professional career, and nothing came close.

"We've missed the playoffs before, but there were not expectations on us, we were young," he said following Saturday's season-finale loss in Atlanta. "This year there were expectations and we are better than that. For some reason we couldn't put it all together at once. We would have a few guys going here and there, but never anybody together."

And for the first time in recent history, injuries played a major factor in how the team performed, starting with a freak accident in the preseason when a skate fell on defenseman Dan Boyle's left wrist, leaving him with three severed tendons. Along the way the team also lost Ryan Craig, Chris Gratton, Brad Lukowich, Michel Ouellet and Paul Ranger for a significant amount of time.

Then came Saturday's news that Vinny Lecavalier will undergo shoulder surgery that will require 12-15 weeks of recovery time.

For sure, the Lightning must have felt like a black cloud hung over the franchise starting from the moment an August news conference was held to announce the team had been sold. After a failed first attempt that fell apart in November, the team is still in a holding pattern as prospective owner Oren Koules tries to secure the necessary financing to close the deal before the deadline at the end of May.

It all led to a Murphy's Law year in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong, including having to trade center Brad Richards to Dallas in a five-player swap.

"I trace the whole thing back to the press conference in August where they announced that we were sold and ever since it was announced it was going to happen in 60-90 days or whenever it was," Feaster said. "And here we are at the end of the season and we still don't have a deal closed. It's just been one thing after another all season."

Tampa Bay's fortunes could turn around, however, starting tonight, when the league holds the draft lottery. As the 30th-place team in the league, the Lightning hold the best chance to land the No. 1 pick.

The prize, should Tampa Bay have the ping-pong balls bounce its way, is center Steven Stamkos. As the consensus top prospect available in the draft, the 6-foot-1, 180-pound teenager is believed to be ready to step into the NHL next season and could fill the team's spot on the second line.

In an attempt to help change the team's string of misfortune this season, Feaster said former team captain Dave Andreychuk will represent the team in Toronto when the results of the lottery are revealed.

"I think that we could have finished 30th in the league by 30 points this year and given the luck that we've had since August, there's no way that we would retain the No. 1 pick," Feaster said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. "But it's certainly is an opportunity if we were successful in having the No. 1 pick. It would be huge."

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835 or eerlendsson@tampatrib.com.

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