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Lightning Won't Let Rumors Distract Them From Work

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2008

Updated: 02/20/2008 12:14 am

BUFFALO, N.Y. - What started out as a tumbleweed rolling across an open field has blown up into a full-fledged swirling dust storm.

Welcome to rumor week in the world of hockey, a period that can make one dizzy trying to follow the funnel cloud of information and misinformation. It's a time when Internet message boards burn with mock proposals that find their way into the rumor mill. The week leading up to the trade deadline, which arrives Tuesday at 3 p.m., often brings more fiction than fact, and trying to find the line between the two is like trying to keep your eyes open in a sandstorm.

For the past four seasons, the Lightning have been one of the teams looking to add for a playoff run instead of subtracting for next season. Now, however, with Tampa Bay sitting in last place in the Eastern Conference and 29th overall in the league standings, the situation is different.

Now, the rumors making the rounds involve some of Tampa Bay's top players being jettisoned, whether because of contract issues, pending free agency or to simply shake things up. Among the latest rumors involving the Lightning included Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Dan Boyle.

While this is a new situation around the Tampa Bay locker room, there hasn't been a sense that it is affecting the players, who still believe they are in a playoff chase.

"With any type of deadline, I'm sure there's some thinking going on," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "But they came to work. You guys think we're done. I don't think we're done, I don't think they think we're done. I think everybody else around us thinks we're done, but we're not approaching it that way. I've seen too many crazy things happen."

But perhaps nothing as crazy as some of the rumors, starting with the one that popped up on Saturday's "Hockey Night in Canada" Hot Stove segment involving Lecavalier. During the intermission report, one national writer said Lecavalier was going to ask for a trade during the summer so he could play in a larger hockey market.

"The rumor was about what I was thinking, and since I didn't tell anybody that, it didn't really bother me because it came from somebody who doesn't really know me," Lecavalier said Tuesday.

The league's general managers being assembled in Naples has added some extra fuel to the fire, even though few trades are consummated at the annual meetings.

Canadian outlets were running with a rumor Monday that Richards was being actively shopped by Tampa Bay general manager Jay Feaster. That came as news to Richards, who has a no-trade clause.

"Ever since the lockout, the three of us including Marty St. Louis and Lecavalier along with Boyle, we've been rumored to be going somewhere, so I guess until somebody says that somebody has been traded, nobody should be worried; you just need to go out and play," Richards said Tuesday. "I know there are rumors around, but until somebody tells me something different, I'm playing for the Lightning."

Part of the Richards rumor involves Boyle, a pending free agent who could command a salary near $7 million annually and is rumored to be seeking an eight-year contract. The theory is that if Tampa Bay wants to retain Boyle, it has to clear salary space by moving another contract, and Richards could be the target because of his $7.8 million contract that runs through the 2010-11 season.

"Personally, this is my first year involved in something like this," Boyle said. "I'm just trying to block everything out. I still think, and I know the media and most people don't think we have a chance, but I think we still have a chance, so that's what I'm concentrating on. So, contracts and trades and stuff, I just try not to worry about it."

Feaster declined to speak on rumors involving the team, offering reporters in Naples his standard line, "I don't want to confirm or deny, and nothing should be inferred by my ability to confirm or deny" when asked about any rumors.

On the ice, it's business as usual until something disrupts the situation.

"I haven't talked to the players about any of the rumors, I've talked to them about some of the doubt around us, that we can't buy into that," Tortorella said. "But as far as the way we practiced, they practiced hard, they practiced well and we'll go at it again and get on the road."

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

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