Weekend Round up - Tebow, The Lightning, Bruce Allen, and More!

By JC De La Torre

Hey folks, apologies for the late posts, the old warhorse that was my computer finally past away. So with excuses out of the way - let's touch on some topics that effected Tampa Bay sports over the weekend.

Tim Tebow Returning to Florida
Florida Phenom Quarterback Tim Tebow announced he will be returning for his senior season at Florida, to the glee of all Gator fans. During the Gators celebration of their latest national championship at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, the crowd chanted "One More Year" and after thanking his teammates, God, and his family, "Superman" added, "Oh, by the way, one more thing, let's do it again. I'm coming back." At that moment, there was a collective, "Aww...crap..." everywhere in the southeast outside of Florida (and a few in Tallahassee, too). Tebow will have the unique opportunity to cement his legacy as one of the greatest Gators in school history while enhancing his resume for the Pros. We think it's the best move for Tebow and even if he doesn't succeed in the Pros, Tebow will be a legend that all Gator quarterbacks are measured against for many, many years.

Gators Basketball team opens SEC schedule with victory over Ole Miss
Billy Donovan's Florida basketball team held on for a 78-68 victory over Ole Miss to open up their SEC schedule. Donovan, however, was none too pleased with his team's performance. Florida was outrebounded 46-22.

"What really got exposed is the thing that I've always been worried about with our team, is, will be physically compete up front and create a level of confrontation in the paint," Donovan told the St. Petersburg Times, "I don't know the last time, since I've been here, we've been outrebounded by 24 rebounds."

Ole Miss rallied from a 21 point decifit to pull within 2:07 left in the game. Florida would hit their free throws down the stretch to provide the difference.

USF Upends DePaul for 1st Big East Victory
The USF Basketball team got 22 points from Dominique Jones and 18 from Jesus Verdejo to get their first Big East victory of the season, an 80-58 destruction of DePaul. The Bulls opened up the game with a 15-6 run and never looked back.


Bruce Allen Speaks to the Media
Buccaneers General Manager Bruce Allen spoke to the media on Friday on a myriad of issues facing the team. The gist of the conference was yes, the Glazers are as ticked off as the fans are at the end of the season and no, they aren't holding the wallet because of their Manchester United debt. Allen has the go ahead to sign any free agent he deems will improve the team. Allen is never one to get into specifics but it seems the team is tired of using retread quarterbacks for Jon Gruden's system and may seek out a young stud to go along with 2008 5th round draft pick Josh Johnson that the team can build around for the forseeable future. The team also believes Carnell "Cadillac" Williams will return to the Bucs, but aren't counting on him for at least the first half of 2009.

Bolts Blow Another Lead, But Pull Out Win in Anaheim
The Tampa Bay Lighning blew another 2 goal lead Saturday night but Ryan Malone's second of the game gave the Lightning a 4-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks. Vaclav Prospal and Martin St. Louis also scored, while Kari Ramo made 29 saves in his first start of the season. Steven Stamkos did not play in this one. The Lighting put Stamkos on a conditioning program to build up his strength after a 16-game stretch with only one goal and two assists.

Bolts Owners Amend Financial Deal with Palace Sports
The principals of OK hockey, Palace Sports, and the NHL met in New York to amend the $70 million dollar financial agreement between the OK hockey and Palace Sports. While details of the changes were not released, all sides seemed pleased with the changes.

"The only thing I can say is they're in fine shape," Palace Sports CEO Tom Wilson told the St. Petersburg Times.

"It gives us a lot of room to maneuver and do what we want to do with the team," Lightning Principal Owner Oren Koules said.


NFL Final Four Set
Two of the four teams will make it to Tampa for the Super Bowl and no one had them pegged as likely candidates. The Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals, and Philadelphia Eagles each advanced to their respective conference championship games and play for the right to go to the Super Bowl. The Cardinals shocked the Carolina Panthers 33-13 in a game no one saw coming. The Panthers' Jake Delhomme threw five interceptions in the loss. Baltimore stunned top seeded Tennessee in a defensive battle 13-10.

On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles continued their improbable run, beating the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants in a dominating defensive performance, 23-11, while Pittsburgh outslugged San Diego 35-24 to become the only home team to win during the Divisional playoffs. It marks the first time since going to a 16 game schedule that two teams that did not win at least 10 games played each other in a conference championship.

The Philadelphia Eagles will head to Arizona for a 3pm (ET) kickoff of the NFC Championship game, while Pittsburgh will host division rival Baltimore at 6:30 pm (ET) in the AFC Championship game.

Lightning Show toughness, Still Can't Beat the Rangers

By JC De La Torre

Before Wednesday night's game against the top team in the Eastern Conference, the New York Rangers, interim head coach Rick Tocchet made it clear that the effort against the New Jersey Devils was unacceptable and gave the edict of get tougher or get out. The Bolts were definitely tougher against the powerful Rangers, but the results were still the same - a 3-2 shootout loss.

"This is for everybody," Tocchet told the St. Petersburg Times before the game, "If the results aren't there, I don't care who it is, you're not going to play. I don't know if we're at that time yet, but it's getting close. We're going to have to get a little bit of urgency. We thought we had some baby steps, but then New Jersey happened. Was Jersey something that just happened or is it something that we have problems, we're going to start getting rid of people here?"

The message was sent and the Bolts responded in a scoreless first period where rookie Steven Stamkos got into his first NHL fight, while Evgeny Artyukhin and Colton Orr exchange pleasantries at the end of the first.

The second period opened with the teams trading goals, New York's Markus Naslund opened the scoring at 2:40 of the second and two minutes later Ryan Malone answered on the power play. Finally, with 7:23 left in the 2nd period and the game tied at one the heavyweight bought everyone was waiting for took place. Lightning toughman David Koci versus Rangers Enforcer Colton Orr.

Courtesy HockeyFights.com and youtube

Orr got loose on a few blasts early in the fight, but Koci connected with a right hand to the snoz of Orr and rocked him, dominating the rest of the battle until Orr turtled.

Late in the Period, with Ryan Malone off for hooking Scott Gomez, the Rangers took the lead on the power play with a Naslund blast from the point. New York took a 2-1 into the second intermission.

The lead would hold until late in the third period when with 0:50 left in the game, Mark Recchi redirected a Martin St. Louis shot past Henrik Lundqvist to tie it at 2.

After the scoreless overtime period, we went to the Lightning's dread - the shootout. Vrbata and Jussi Jokinen would miss their chances, Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev wouldn't and there's your hockey game.

Tocchet seemed pleased with the Lightning's effort but graded their net presence a B-. "We're just having a tough time scoring goals. We've got to roll up our sleeves and keep going to work," the interim head coach told the Times, "It was an intense game, and that's going to happen. The intensity I'm talking about is coming up with loose pucks, going to the net. It's still a work in progress. Overall, the guys worked hard."

Rally Falls Short, But Bolts Are Turning it Around

By JC De La Torre

Under former Head Coach Barry Melrose, the Tampa Bay Lightning looked like dead men skating. Under new interim Head Coach Rick Tocchet, the team showed passion, guts, and determination in blistering a Lightning team record 52 shots on goal and rallying from a 3 goal deficit before finally falling to their hated rival Florida Panthers in their albatross - the shootout.

Tampa Bay outshot their opponent in each of the 3 periods for the first time this season, but in the 1st it got them little, as the Panthers Bryan McCabe and David Booth found the back the net for a 2-0 lead. McCabe scored again in the 2nd period on the power play to stake Florida to a 3-0 advantage and seemingly insurmountable lead with stellar Panthers Goalie Tomas Vokoun between the pipes but midway through the 2nd, the game turned. Steven Stamkos, who played a career high 17:55 alternating between the top two lines and leading all Lightning players with 9 shots on the night, drove toward the net, setting up a scoring chance for the snakebit Radim Vrbata. Vrbata finally broke through, depositing the puck to cut the Panthers advantage to 3-1.

The goal energized the Lightning, who dominated the game from that point on. Tampa Bay drew within one on a Gretzky-esque play behind the net, feeding a charging Evgeny Artyukhin who jammed it in to cut the Panthers lead to 1. Defenseman Steve Eminger, acquired in the Matt Carle Philly deal, completed a 3 point night with his first goal as a member of the Tampa Bay Lighting and ended a goal drought of 63 games, tying the game at 3 with a blast from the point with only 2:51 left in the game.

That goal got the Bolts a point in the standings after being blown out (at least on the scoreboard) through the first half of the game. Tomas Vokoun may have been the only reason the Panthers emerged from this one victorious for Florida. Vokoun was outstanding, making 49 saves, including a stick check of Vaclav Prospal who was charging to the net, stopping a last second shot by Mark Recchi wide with a stick. Vokoun also benefited from a little luck, as with three second left in overtime, Paul Ranger's slapper went off the glove of a spralling Panthers defenseman and trickled wide.

Many of Steven Stamkos' minutes were spent alternating between Center and Right Wing on the number one line with Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.

"I felt like I was in the game," Stamkos told the St. Petersburg Times, "I had a ton of shots and felt great. We dominated them tonight, outshot them and outplayed them in their end. When you're not winning, these games slip by you."

Tocchet agreed but still believed there was a lot to work on, "There were so many good things," Tocchet said, "(On the penalty kill that failed twice against the league's worst power play) We have to start boxing out a little better, The defense has to start taking sticks."

As for their sixth shootout loss, Vokoun was again the difference. After Tampa Bay's Vincent Lecavalier and Jussi Jokinen and Florida's Stephen Weiss failed, Nathan Horton - Lightning Killer extraordinare, deked and found the back of the net past Lightning goalie Mike Smith. Martin St. Louis was stoned on his last chance, giving the Panthers the victory.

Tocchet took responsibility for another failed shootout for the Bolts, telling the Times, "It's probably our fault, we have not practiced penalty shots much this year. It's on my list, trust me, on the top."

"Tocch", as he's called by his players, better hurry as the shootout right now is the difference between Tampa Bay being near the bottom of the Eastern Conference and contending for a playoff spot. If Tampa Bay had just taken 3 of the 6 shootouts they have lost, they would be 8th in the Eastern Conference right now instead of 13th.

Bolts Bag 2nd Straight Road Win

By JC De La Torre

The Tampa Bay Lightning gave the Buffalo Sabres the hockey version of the lump of coal for a trick instead of a treat, thrashing the Sabres 5-2. It marked the first time this season Tampa Bay has scored more than three goals and got the Lightning to the .500 level for the first time this season (3-3-3).

The #1 overall pick of the 2008 NHL Draft, Steven Stamkos, scored his first two NHL goals and added an assist for a 3 point night, giving him 4 points in the past two games. Lecavalier tossed in two assists, while Ryan Malone, Jussi Jokinen, and Paul Ranger each found the back of the net.

The scoring started in the first period, when Stamkos deflected in a Vinny Lecavalier blast from the point. The power play goal gave the Bolts a 1-0 advantage. Less than a minute later, Jussi Jokinen made it 2-0 when his slipped a shot past Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller. Buffalo would answer at the 11:12 mark of the first on Clarke MacArthur's slap shot that went high on Lightning Goalie Olaf Kolzig. Ryan Malone's shot on the feed from Stamkos would make it 3-1 with 0:26 left in the first.

In the 2nd, the barrage continued midway through the period, when defenseman Paul Ranger scored on a "Look what I found" goal at the 13:10 mark to make it 4-1. With 5 minutes to go in the period, a Stamkos blast from just inside the circle would give the Lightning a 4 goal lead. Thomas Vanek would get his 9th goal of the season on the power play to close out the scoring. Neither team would find the net in the 3rd. Olaf Kolzing save 29 of 31 for Tampa Bay and the Bolts power play finished 1 for 3, while they killed 4 of the 5 Buffalo chances.

With Tampa Bay's 2nd straight victory and the Lightning's offense finally coming to life, the Bolts moved into 3rd in the Southeast division and despite their slow start, they find themselves only 3 points out of 1st.