A bit of off-day news for hockey fans in Tampa Bay.

First and foremost, the Lightning swapped goalies with Disney on Ice the Anaheim Ducks. Dan Ellis has been shipped to sunny California in exchange for backup goalie Curtis McElhinney. According to the team's official Web release, the Bolts’ newest netminder had played in 21 games for the Ducks this season, going 6-9-1 with a 3.93 goals-against-average and a .890 save percentage. By contrast, Ellis went 13-7-6 in 31 games for the Lightning with a 2.93 GAA and .898 save percentage.

While this new goalie’s numbers may fall short of inspiring, closer examination of this trade makes it a pretty good deal for everyone. Tampa Bay’s long-time question mark has been goaltending, a situation general manager Steve Yzerman remedied earlier this season in acquiring current starter Dwayne Roloson from the New York Islanders. That move meant Ellis or Mike Smith had to go; Smith was waived earlier this month, meaning the Bolts effectively got nothing for sending Brad Richards to Dallas (I am so glad Brian Lawton is gone and Stevie Y is turning out to be the rockstar exec we all hoped he’d be). The Lightning still has a serviceable backup to Roloson and gets to shed a little payroll at the same time. Anaheim was no doubt looking for some netminding stability of its own with stud Jonas Hiller having some health issues. Win-win.

Afterthought: I wonder if McElhinney has a Twitter account…

This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.