Tampa in familiar territory

Anger and frustration continue to build for the players and fans of the Tampa Bay LIghtning.  After a strong start which had everyone getting excited for the franchises first playoff appearance, the team has really fallen on tough times.  Since the new year, Tampa has gone a BRUTAL, 14 wins and 23 loses which has put them way down in the standings, severely hurting their chances at that elusive first playoff appearance.

“I think the frustrating thing about how the team has performed is that the majority of those loses have come after we improved our team big time with multiple trades” GM Hill said.  Those trades that Hill was referring to brought in Nick Foligno, Andrew Ladd, Roberto Luongo, Sami Vatanen, and Tommy Wingels. These moves were thought to solidify almost all aspects of the team, forward, defense, and goaltending.  In order to acquire such pieces, a lot of youth was moved out which was worth it to get to the playoffs. With the way the team has responded though has put GM Hill in a difficult spot. Do we keep trying to find a combination that works? Or do we prepare to move out our UFA’s and accept that some of the deals that were completed were basically a waste and an example of poor asset management.

Captain Andrew Ladd, Nick Foligno and Tommy Wingels would be the pieces that will be on the way out by the trade deadline if the team does not start to play exceptionally better.