Tampa Bay Lightning still ready to take on opposition next season -NHL Update
The Tampa Bay Lightning might not have made any significant changes to their line-up this offseason, but as the 2012-2013 National Hockey League (NHL) closes in, the Florida based team is still confident of taking on any challenge they face.
Just a season after making the Eastern Conference Finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning failed to qualify to make the playoffs this year and faced a major upset with fans and team management questioning the capabilities of their team members. One of the biggest
issues faced by Tampa Bay was the lacking of a capable goalie as Dwayne Roloson seems to have reached his final destination and remains unsigned for the upcoming hockey year.
"The reality is we didn't have the same team and we had injuries to start the year, so you have to be scared a little bit of the results," Lightning coach, Guy Boucher, told the team's website. "I felt we were overconfident at the start of the year as a
group. We weren't arrogant, just a little too overconfident."
At the moment, Tampa Bay has Martin St. Louis, Steven Stamkos and Teddy Purcell as their leading three starting men while Ryan Malone, Vinny Lecavlier and Brett Connolly are the second line-mates.
Benoit Pouliot, Vladislav Namestnikov and J.T. Brown come up on third with remaining players on the fourth.
"We are comfortable with him in our top four. [Carle] can play in all situations and he takes pressure off some of our younger guys," Tampa Bay general manager, Steve Yzerman, said.
For defensemen, Matt Carle and Eric Brewer, followed by Victor Hedman and Sami Salo. Out of these four, the Tampa Bay Lightning really need Hedman to step up his game after a disappointing past record and show some consistency on the ice for sure.
For now, Tampa Bay Lightning seems content with having Anders Lindback and Mathieu Garon in net, but only time will tell whether the young goalies will be enough to stop the offensive onslaught brought on by other teams or not as this star studded club needs
to get back to the top before a major move is made.
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