Prospective Look at Tampa Bay

In the not so distant past, the Tampa Bay Lightning were considered to be so 'top heavy' that they were going to be in trouble for years to come. Well, that prognosis came to fruition, but now there looks to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

During the season, the team trimmed away a big salary in Brad Richards (sending him to Dallas) and now are looking forward to taking that new space and accomodating some new fresh talent to the line-up to improve their last place finish. If the team could unload Marc Denis and his $3 million salary for next season, they would be in even better shape, but they may drop him to the minors for another season and wait the year out before his contract runs out. But with the three goalies on the active list, the team roster sits at 16 players and is worth approximately $37 million against the cap. That's being in pretty good shape.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Vincent Lecavalier	Paul Ranger	Mike Smith
Martin St. Louis	Filip Kuba	Karri Ramo
Jeff Halpern	Dan Boyle	Marc Denis
Jussi Jokinen	Shane O'Brien
Michel Ouellet	Brad Lukowich
Jason Ward	Mike Lundin
Nick Tarnasky

With one look at the roster above, you'll notice that the Lightning have already filled the top six spots on the blueline, with the greatest of ease. Those six played the bulk of the season, except for Dan Boyle (through injury) and a healthy season from him would mean big things for the Lightning offense. The inclusion of Mike Smith in the deal for Richards from Dallas was a big boost to the crease for Tampa Bay, while they are still waiting on the likes or Karri Ramo or Riku Helenius to pan out as bonafide number ones.

With the space they have underneath the cap, they will have to decide on whether or not to bring back unrestricted free agents, Chris Gratton and Andre Roy for another season. Both earned a million or better, but neither played more than 63 games this season or had more than 21 points. The market for mid-range forwards who are available in the talent pool is fairly reasonable. Good targets for the Lightning may be players like Antti Miettinen from Dallas, Kristian Huselius from Calgary or Niko Kapanen from Phoenix, depending on budget and demands.

Their current stable of young talent is fairly thin, with next to no blue chips waiting in the wings, but of course, that changes come June. On Draft Day, they will get to select first and will more than likely keep the pick and choose Steven Stamkos to give them a little more depth on offense, hopefully right away. If he jumps right away, the stable is still very thin with young and up and coming talent. The Lightning don't have a second round pick this summer, as they had dealt it to pick up Gratton and would likely have to hit a home run in the third round to make this Draft a real success.