Lightning Takeover Appears On Course

ATLANTA - At the league's Board of Governor's meeting on Saturday, the subject of the Lightning sale to Hollywood producer Oren Koules was scarcely mentioned to the league's governors and president's.

"There's nothing to report right now," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.

But that doesn't mean things have stalled, even though the process is at the point in which both Palace Sports and Entertainment officials and Koules had hoped to have a purchase agreement in place.

"I think we are close to the point where things will begin to progress at a quicker pace," Lightning president Ron Campbell said.

Koules declined to comment on the situation, as he has done consistently throughout the process.

After the first attempt to purchase the team ended in a lawsuit being filed in November by potential buyer Jeff Sherrin and his Absolute Hockey partners against Koules, Bettman said he is keeping close to the negotiations this time.

"I'm much more closely involved this time," Bettman said. But "there are no red flags. The original ownership group that had been put together kind of came apart at the seams for a variety of reasons. But there are now discussions going on in a way that if they reach a successful conclusion should enable this transaction to proceed in the ordinary course."

SKILLS TO BURN: Lightning RW Marty St. Louis took part in what the league is hoping will wind up being the signature event of the SuperSkills competition, a shootout similar to the NBA's dunk contest. The players are encouraged to used creativity on their shots and are awarded points by a panel of four celebrity judges.

St. Louis first skated in slowly on San Jose G Evgeni Nabokov before trying to lift the puck onto his stick for a lacrosse-style goal, but he couldn't get the puck onto his blade. On his second chance, St. Louis tried his signature skate-in-backward move but had the puck poked off his stick by Nabokov.

He earned a total of eight points on his first attempt and 14 on his second try.

"I was disappointed with my first shot, I mean, how far did Nabokov come out? I've never seen a goaltender come out that far, he was crowding my space," St. Louis said. "I'm coming in, and you practice that move, but all of a sudden I'm looking at Nabokov and I'm looking at the puck, so it was tough."

Vinny Lecavalier went up to St. Louis and gave him a friendly hug after what was supposed to be the highlight of the skills competition. The event was won by Washington's Alex Ovechkin.

Lecavalier might have needed a hug after he fumbled the puck on his shootout attempt in the elimination competition and never got a shot on goal, but the Eastern Conference captain made up for it during the hardest shot competition. Lecavalier finished second with a speed of 101.9 miles per hour, a shot that was the speed to beat until the final shot of the competition, when Boston D Zdeno Chara blasted a shot at 103.1 mph.

"I was really surprised when I saw the speed, I had to give a second look," Lecavalier said. "But once I saw that Chara's first shot was 101.4, I knew his second shot was going to be even harder."

LINEMATES: Lecavalier will wear his customary No. 4 jersey and will be on the ice for the opening faceoff of tonight's All-Star Game after finishing second in fan voting. And though he will start with RW Daniel Alfredsson and LW Ilya Kovalchuk, Lecavalier said he will play the game on a line with Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and St. Louis.

NUTS AND BOLTS: Bettman said the subject of an 84-game schedule was discussed at the board meeting, but it was too late to have a vote to implement it for the 2008-09 season. ... The Eastern Conference won the skills competition by a score of 9-6. ... Lightning rookie D Mike Lundin failed to score in the Eastern Conference's 7-6 victory in the YoungStars game.