Still mourning Stamkos? Here are departures that really cost Tampa Bay
For the most part, the argument has been all passion and no logic.
Steven Stamkos is gone? What have the Lightning done? Where is the loyalty?
Tampa Bay will never be the same!
Or will it?
While this may feel like a seismic shift in our hockey landscape, history says the departure of an iconic player or coach does not lead to catastrophe. It has, at times, been a necessary turn toward resurgence.
One year after Marty St. Louis was traded, the Lightning were in the Stanley Cup Final. Three years after Evan Longoria was traded, the Rays were in the World Series. One year after Tony Dungy was fired, the Bucs won a Super Bowl.
These are not just random instances. Teams do not haphazardly cast megastars aside. It’s often cast as an economic decision, but it usually involves a player on the backside of a career. Or a team that needs to reinvent itself.
Sure, there is a void when a Vinny Lecavalier is traded, but you forget the Lightning were 18-26-4 and coach Guy Boucher was fired that season. Yes, it was shocking when John Lynch and Warren Sapp were cut loose, but they were in their 30s and the Bucs had just finished 7-9.
So it is with the Lightning today. After successive first-round exits in the playoffs, general manager Julien BriseBois wanted to act quickly before the window of opportunity with Nikita Kucherov/Victor Hedman/Andrei Vasilevskiy/Brayden Point closed. Stamkos is still a highly productive offensive player, particularly on the power play, but the Lightning needed to invest in a forward with a stronger defensive game.
And just like that, we have a new era of Lightning hockey.
Will this end up being a mistake? That’s certainly possible. But I would argue the time was right for the Lightning to make a bold move before their slow decline turned into an out-of-control freefall.
Around here, the real franchise-killers have not been the release of fan favorites but rather moves that generated less outrage. Smaller decisions that led to missed opportunities and a lifetime of regret.
Putting aside Stamkos, Lecavalier, St. Louis, Derrick Brooks, Lynch, Sapp and Longoria, here are five departures that should have been mourned.
Josh Hamilton
The No. 1 pick in the 1999 draft, his career in Tampa Bay was derailed by injuries and drug problems. He went nearly four full seasons without playing any organized baseball before finally getting his life together and appearing in 15 games with a Rays rookie league team in 2006.
Gambling that no team would take him in the Rule 5 draft — which meant he had to spend the entire 2007 season in the majors — the Rays left Hamilton unprotected in the offseason. It was a foolhardy risk and a horrible misreading of what other teams were thinking. Several GMs later expressed interest in Hamilton, and the Reds ended up getting him via a trade with the Cubs. Two years later, he made the first of five consecutive All-Star teams.