There doesn’t seem to be any good way to gauge what the Tampa Bay Lightning are going to be this year. They have a new owner in Jeff Vinik; they have a new General Manger in Hockey Legend Steve Yzerman, and a new head coach in Guy Boucher. This will be Boucher’s second year as a hockey head coach. Previously he was a coach in the AHL and he turned some heads with his radical innovations to the game. This may be a very interesting team to watch.
Yzerman served his apprenticeship with Ken Holland of the Detroit Red Wings, who may just be the best NHL executive of the current generation. He also built the gold medal winning Canadian hockey team in 2010. This will be his first chance to prove his skills in a NHL front office. The Lightning have legit elite talent, but recent ownership squabbles have made them the NHL’s second biggest circus to the happenings in the Arizona Desert.
Boucher’s system is unlike anything being run in the NHL currently. He employs a hard pressure system that often double teams the opposing puck carrier with the goal being to create turnovers in the defensive zone. He uses a 1-3-1 alignment on offense, and that system was wildly effective in the AHL. In the NHL it might be different enough to cause other team to over react to it.
Key Additions- D Brett Clark, D Pavel Kubina, C Marc-Antonine Pouliot, LW Chris Durno, LW Simon Gagne, G Dan Ellis, and D Mathieu Roy
Key Subtractions- G Anteroom Intimacy, C Zenon Konopka, D Kurtis Foster, LW Alex Tanguay, D Andrej Meszaros, D Matt Walker, LW Ryan Craig, and LW Todd Fedoruk
