The Sports Corner

Melrose fired in Tampa, Tocchet takes his place

In an interview with Michael Landsberg on TSN’s Off The Record, Len Barry, co-owner of the Lighting, was asked how safe his team’s head coach’s job was.

“Very safe.”

Well, Barry lied. After 16 games as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning with a record of 5-7-4, Barry Melrose was fired by Barry and co., and has been replaced by Rick “The Gambler” Tocchet.

Let’s not unleash any hate on Tocchet, though. He was a key member of the 1987 Canada Cup team that featured some of the greatest hockey ever played. But as we’ve seen with Wayne Gretzky and Craig Hartsburg, that doesn’t always transfer over to the coaching realm.

For Melrose, this may very well be his last chance at coaching in the NHL. He had an enormous “vacation” while he was an analyst at ESPN after his last tenure in the league, and it looks like there was a good reason for it. It’ll be interesting to see whether ESPN takes him back, but you know TSN would.

The real problems, however, with the Lightning were the expectations placed on them. Let’s break those down.

1. You have Vincent Lecavalier. One of the premier scorers in the league. Like all scorers have done in the past, he slumped. Right at the start of this season. Now you have too much pressure on the ex MVP…

2. Martin St. Louis. It’s very obvious that he was a one year wonder. He probably wasn’t even the MVP that year, playing with Lecavalier. Ever since then he hasn’t produced, timely enough with his big contract. 

3. All of the offseason acquisitions. Ryan Malone is grossly over rated. Not his toughness. Nobody can deny him that. But playing with Crosby, Malkin, Staal, and Hossa, he’s bound to put up points. Darcy Hordichuk could put up 15 goals with them. Malone just isn’t the second or first line player they expected him to be. Neither is…

4. Steven Stamkos. Have you seen Stamkos? I haven’t. He’s a good young player with potential, but thats it. Way too much stock was put in him prior to this season, and it shouldn’t have been. He is not the gamebreaker we’ve seen out of three of the last four first overall picks in Crosby, Ovechkin, and Kane. Remember the Erik Johnson pick? Some team’s just get unlucky with bad draft years. They just have to realize it and not think just because he was the best player available that he’s automatically going to turn into a franchise player. 

5. Playing E-fence. That’s right. No D. Seriously, their best defenseman is Marek Malik. Steve Eminger is a close second. That is terrible. And when you have that bad of a back-end, you better have good goaltending. Too bad they have…

6. Mike Smith. He was a very good back-up. That’s it. Who knows, maybe with a good defense he could prosper, but he’s not doing much to show it. Kolzig is going to have to step in sooner or later.