Bolts Making Moves for Cap Space

By JC De La Torre

Over the weekend, the Tampa Bay Lightning's revolving door of players continued to turn as Tampa Bay cleared nearly $3 million in cap space by trading defenseman Matt Carle and a 3rd round pick to the Philadelphia Flyers for defenseman Steve Eminger and minor league prospect Steve Downie (who was assigned to AHL Norfolk). Then they demoted forward Jason Ward to Norfolk. Not sure how I missed this over the weekend, sorry about that. In any event, its pretty interesting to see Carle, the lynchpin of the Danny Boyle deal, dealt after only 12 games. Carle hasn't lived up to expectations of being an offensive performer and point on the power play, managing only 2 points and only a +1 on defense. In Eminger, the Bolts get veteran, gritty stay-at-home defenseman who had 2 points. Both Eminger and Downie are former 1st round picks and are 25 yrs of age.

It is a diametric change from current regime to see the Bolts revolving door moves. Former GM Jay Feaster believed in stability and resisted making changes to the hockey club while Brian Lawton has made more deals in the few short months he's been here than Feaster did his entire tenure.

Even Head Coach Barry Melrose seemed to yearn for stability, ""It's not ideal," coach Barry Melrose told the St. Pete Times, "Hopefully, that will end pretty quick and we get a lineup we really like."

Lawton claims there's no bigger deal on the horizon, but the active attempt to trade Radim Vrbata and the sudden priority to clear cap room seems to indicate that something may be in the works.

JC De La Torre is an author of Science Fiction/Fantasy and other realms of Speculative Fiction - check out his latest works at JC Delatorre.com