Sorting Out the Blueline in Tampa

Only four defensemen in Tampa Bay have played all 13 games for the club: Mattias Ohlund, Victor Hedman, Andrej Meszaros and Matt Walker. Okay, so these are likely the better defensemen to have at the moment, instead of the other four that are circling around the last two or maybe three spots a night. Paul Ranger is away on personal matters, which leaves David Hale, Kurtis Foster and Lukas Krajicek to man the remaining posts on any given night. This has turned into a bit of a fantasy nightmare, because any one of the four had plenty of reason to be in the top six at the beginning of the season, but now they are the forever cycled.

On Tuesday night, it was Foster who was sitting for the Lightning, making his 7th appearance in the press box this season.

There have been some rumblings of names on the trading block already in the first five-plus weeks and leading the charge there is Krajicek, who has been rumoured to be gaining some interest from a California team. You can always take that with a grain of salt... or the entire shaker.

In the Draft, there are only two Lightning defensemen taken and they are Ohlund and Foster. Foster being the one who's sitting and the main reason for this post. He has been a small thorn in the side of Dale C. in the Draft, who was taking a reasonable gamble (I thought at the Draft, anyways) on Foster, thinking he would be a top six regular. Unless he's dealt in the next few weeks, Foster may be a pretty good candidate for being dropped at the Waiver Draft.

Foster was also taken three times in the Sheet pool, but he was put in the last defenseman box of the Eastern Conference, Box 30, so there isn't a great deal of points to be had. Foster hasn't registered a point yet this season, but the tops is only five, by both Paul Mara in Montreal and Jeff Schultz in Washington.