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Bolts Soon To Take On Different Look

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 18, 2008

If everything goes as expected today, the National Hockey League will approve Oren Koules as the new owner of the Lightning. Once the deal officially closes later this month, life as we know it on Channelside Drive will have ended.

We won't know for a while if that's good or bad, but anything different right now is worth a shot.

And we do know it's going to be different.

Koules fired a head coach and orchestrated the trade of Brad Richards while the sale to his group was still pending. One can only guess his first words once he gets to sit in the big-boy chair all by himself.

Feaster! Fetch me a beer!

The phrase you hear most often about Koules is "hands on."

That means it's basically "hands off" for soon-to-be-former general manager Jay Feaster. His autonomy to run hockey operations - or any kind of tonomy, for that matter - has ended. He'll still be a voice in the room, but he'll use it mostly to order pizza and sandwiches for the guys.

Given that Feaster brought us Marc Denis, among others, you probably won't see many flaming torches of protest outside the Forum over that one. That doesn't mean the new guys will be any better, though.

There is talk that Koules has a list of free agents he has targeted and he plans to be aggressive. He'll draft a potential superstar (Steven Stamkos) on Friday and hire a new coach (presumably Barry Melrose) next Tuesday.

It will be quite a splash.

The Lightning sank to 30th out of, ahem, 30 teams in the league last season, though. This is not a short-term fix. It's legitimate to wonder if Koules, who has never been in the front office of a professional hockey team, is ready for this.

Quirky Past

The Bolts have had three previous owners. One of them lived in Tokyo, and another rarely came out of his bunker in Detroit. We did see a lot of Art Williams, but he wasn't around long enough to make much of an impression beyond the occasional "stud or dud" quote.

Now we've got a guy known for producing the "Saw" movies, which could lead to more metaphors than we even want to think about - slashing payroll chief among them.

Even getting to this point has been an ordeal. This deal has been pending for almost 11 months, and it looked dead at least a couple of times, once because Koules was sued by his former partners in a dispute over money.

Given the gallery of owners of this quirky franchise, he sounds like he'll fit right in.

"Hands on" isn't necessarily a bad thing. It worked OK for Jerry Jones in Dallas.

George Steinbrenner had some success. Al Davis used to be good. Mark Cuban is at least entertaining.

At least the decisions will be made here, too. Koules spends a lot of time in Hollywood, but he said last summer he plans to buy a house here and spend a lot of time at the Forum. He won't need permission from Tokyo or Detroit to get the Zamboni fixed - or to trade Dan Boyle, if that's what it comes to.

The Bolts did win a Stanley Cup with Bill Davidson overseeing from his lordly manor in Michigan while Feaster made the roster moves, so there is no magic formula. This isn't roto hockey. It's one thing to be aggressive and spend money on players. It's quite another to understand how each individual fits into the overall picture you're trying to create.

Need A Jolt

The Bolts need the cardio paddles right now. They became bland and ill-focused last season, and it showed in the standings. Koules can't do much worse. They're already at the bottom.

There is talent there - just not enough.

Vinny and Marty are still here. Stamkos is coming.

That's not a bad foundation.

But the Bolts are about to have an owner who has never been in this position and a head coach who hasn't been behind the bench in 13 years. We've got some questions here, starting with this: stud or dud?

We'll know soon enough.

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