It was only three NHL seasons ago that the Tampa Bay Lightning hoisted the Stanley Cup trophy. Post championship, professional hockey suffered a season-canceling strike and rocky re-launch, while the Lightning spent the intervening years unraveling faster than coach John Tortorella’s post-game cool. The Lightning finished dead last in the Eastern Conference in 2007-08 (with the worst record in the NHL), despite stars Vinny Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis providing one of the league’s most potent scoring threats. New ownership has taken over, and Coach Torts is no more. There’s a new face working the bench at The Forum, that of hockey (and ESPN) legend Barry Melrose, who hopes to rebuild the Lightning back to championship form. Take heed, hockey fans; where there’s a mullet, there’s a way.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2008.