You're going to need a program to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, which might or might not be a good thing.
After finishing 30th overall last season, the Lightning were sold to a new ownership group that set out and in short order managed to overhaul the organization from top to bottom by dumping the former general manager, coaching staff and all but 10 players. The upshot is that Tampa Bay has turned into one of the NHL's most intriguing teams, one that could actually challenge for the Southeast Division title or just as easily end up as the league's latest example of a chemistry experiment gone bad.
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| Tampa Bay's new owner, Oren Koules, has been busy. (Getty Images) |
It is that latter area though that remains the biggest area of concern for the Lightning, who finished last in overall defense a season ago. The group along the blue line will be among the youngest and least experienced in the league and without a true No. 1 type among it, meaning there will be added pressure on sophomore Mike Smith and aging veteran Olaf Kolzig to give Tampa Bay chances to win with their goaltending.
Goaltending will be a question mark as well in Washington heading into camp, where the upstart Capitals are coming off a stunning division title under a rookie coach who took over during the season.
The Capitals were a transformed team after Bruce Boudreau replaced Glen Hanlon behind the bench at Thanksgiving, and league MVP Alex Ovechkin turned in a superhuman effort down the stretch to lift Washington to its first playoff appearance in five years. Still, it wasn't until the arrival of goalie Cristobal Huet at the trade deadline that Washington became a legitimate postseason contender.
Huet is gone, bolting for bigger bucks from the Blackhawks, and his free-agent replacement, Jose Theodore, is coming off a decent season in Colorado. That may have been a contract year aberration for Theodore, who floundered for several seasons following his Vezina and Hart Trophy effort for Montreal in 2001-02.
Theodore's response this season will go a long way toward determining whether the Capitals can repeat, though Washington will provide him with lots of scoring support thanks to a high-powered offense led by Ovechkin and young stars like Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin and defenseman Mike Green.
Offense figures to be a problem again in Florida, where the Panthers finished 20th in that category last season and then traded away top scorer and captain Olli Jokinen. But the dynamics could be a lot different this season in Florida, where successful junior coach Peter DeBoer brings his up-tempo philosophy to his first job in the NHL, and takes over a team that looks like it will create a lot more from the back end out.
The Panthers brought in veteran Cory Stillman to help offset some of Jokinen's lost output, but the biggest changes came along the blue line, where Florida added the offensive-minded Bryan McCabe and Keith Ballard and veteran Nick Boynton to a group that includes a very good puck mover in Jay Bouwmeester and Bryan Allen.
It is a far more mobile group than the Panthers have had in years, and it could provide enough spark to help young forwards like Nathan Horton, Stephen Weiss and Rostislav Olesz take their offensive games to the next level.
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The view is far less optimistic in Atlanta, where rookie coach John Anderson is finally getting an NHL shot after spending 13 successful seasons in the minors. Anderson takes over a sputtering team that followed up a division title by missing the playoffs for the seventh time in its eight-season history and now looks even worse on paper.
Atlanta lost several key veteran leaders during the summer and effectively struck out in the free-agent market because none of the top available players wanted to go there. In fact, Atlanta's biggest addition was free-agent defenseman Ron Hainsey, who wasn't deemed important enough to be retained by the woeful Columbus Blue Jackets. And Hainsey was actually a fall-back choice after another free agent, Brian Campbell, took less money to join Chicago.
On the bright side, Atlanta still has one of the game's top offensive threats in Ilya Kovalchuk, and first-round draft pick Zach Bogosian will be given every chance to make the team. But while most teams head into training camp at least trying to believe they have a shot at the Stanley Cup, the likelihood is most of the Thrashers understand they'll spend much of the season contending for the No. 1 lottery pick rather than a playoff spot.
The wild card in the Southeast should be the Carolina Hurricanes, who will be aiming for their first playoff appearance since winning the Stanley Cup in 2006.
Despite a big season by franchise player Eric Staal, Carolina fell two points short last season. Injuries to key players like Rod Brind'Amour, Justin Williams and Ray Whitney derailed a strong second-half run that began after the All-Star break.
A healthy return by those players will boost what should be one of the league's more effective offenses and give Carolina a chance to win what is arguably the weakest division in the league. But for the Hurricanes to be truly competitive, they'll need better efforts from a defense that has been almost entirely turned over since the championship season and especially from goalie Cam Ward, who has yet to shake the belief that his Conn Smythe season was a one-hit wonder.
