Goaltender Marc Denis' tenure with the Tampa Bay Lightning may be nearing an end. The club placed him on waivers Friday and it's expected he'll clear and be demoted to their AHL affiliate.
The Lightning acquired Denis last year from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for winger Fredrik Modin and goalie Frederik Norrena, and signed him to a three-year contract worth $2.87 million per season.
He was expected to be their starting goaltender and fill the void left by the departure of Nikolai Khabibulin in the summer of 2005, but instead he lost the starter's role last season to rookie Johan Holmqvist.
This season was worse for Denis, as he saw action in only 10 games as head coach John Tortorella's confidence in him further eroded. Call-up Karri Ramo played well in three games, making Denis the odd man out in the club's goaltending rotation.
It's been speculated the Lightning will soon place Denis on re-entry waivers in hopes a rival club will claim him but given his deteriorating performance over the last two seasons that prospect appears remote.
And with the Bolts struggling this month and in danger of falling out of the playoff race sending Denis to the minors for the rest of the season will clear some valuable cap space which could be used to perhaps bring in some defensive help. That is, if current ownership will allow GM Jay Feaster to shop around for help.
The Lightning are currently up for sale with Hollywood producer Oren Koules having exclusive negotiating rights, which could severely restrict any potential moves on Feaster's part.
Denis' demotion could be the end of his time with the Lightning, for if Feaster is unable to move him via trade or re-entry waivers he could be buy out the remaining year of Denis' contract next June.
1) Too little too late? Denis was clearly NOT the answer even before this season. Holmqvist has looked terrible, and Ramo after 2 decent games to start his pro career is showing he isn't quite ready
2) Feaster should have addressed this dire weakness before the season started. Totorella will probably soon lose his job because no one can stop a puck in Tampa as we mused today: http://newfaux.blogspot.com/2007/12 /time-running-out.html#links
Last edited by fauxrumors5 on December 28th at 11:27 AM.
I think the big issue in Tampa Bay is the bosses don't want to lose their shirts. Shelling out more money means less profit, and less profit in the business world is one of those seven deadly sins.
It stinks something awful for the hockey fans, but there's not a whole lot any of us can do about it.
Witness the beauty of the current salary cap at work. Spend too much on the front end, you've got nothing left for the back end. And if you disproportionately allocate your limited resources, you're a) non-competitive and b) ham-strung from doing anything about it.
Brian Burke floated his "dead money" alternative, but I think that approach yanks the lid off the salary can of worms, even if there's a cap on the amount of dead money a team can carry.
A more practical alternative would be to give teams relief for injured players, because now clubs are dinged for the cap hit of the injured player PLUS the cap hit of the guy brought on to the roster to replace him. That can chew up your excess cap space -- if any -- pretty fast. (It should be noted that the current CBA does offer relief for anyone placed on the Long-Term Injured Reserve, essentially players with season ending injuries, although that relief is limited to the amounts spent IN EXCESS of the salary cap ceiling. This approach is a variation on that existing practice.)
Consider: The players' salary cap numbers are subdivided over a 187 day long season. Dan Boyle has missed 44 games (and counting) with his wrist injury, roughly 85 days out of the 187. Calculate against Boyle's $3.333 million cap number the cap relief that the Lightning would be credited under this scheme ($1.5 million and climbing), and suddenly Tampa Bay has the flexibility in current year cap space to do something about their goaltending.
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Last edited by Matt_McCallum on December 28th at 4:49 PM.
Another example: Colorado's Joe Sakic is out for at least three months (90 days) of the 187 day season. That's essentially half of Sakic's $6.75 million salary cap hit. (For those of you who want to be exact, it's 48 percent and $3.25 million.) So under this scenario, Colorado would have roughly $3.25 million in current year cap space to trade for Sakic's short-term replacement.
The advantage of this scenario is that it increases a team's current year cap flexibility without raising the overall salary cap number (as the "dead money" approach would) and in turn leading to salary inflation. The key would be ensuring there could be no abuse, such as healthy scratches being assigned a mysterious "upper body injury" in an effort for teams to save those salary dollars.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on December 28th at 3:03 PM.
Denis was a workhorse in Columbus.Holmqvist is a good goalie with some fundemental flaws that can be corrected. Ramo is young and still learning. The problem isn't the goaltending, or the defense, or the amount of salary being spent on three players....IT is Tortorella! He has worn out his effectiveness, the players don't hear him as he is tuned out, his system isn't working, he has lost touch as seen when Boyle was rushed back, his three seasons of musical goalies (confidence killer) and making someone on IR the captain. Players need to face the captain when they come off the ice as in the cup year with Andrychuk. The team needs a new veteran voice, a new captain and a new system. We can't even get out of our own end!
The flames should taske a chance on this guy I think he is still capable of regaining his form and is still reasonably young. I think he just did not get along with that #### Tortorella. Plus the flames need a decent NHL experienced back up to give Kipper some heat.
After watching him a couple of games this season, and looking at his measurables, I think Denis is burnt out. (Maybe he was TOO much of a workhorse in Columbus all those years.) From what I've seen, he's really been fighting the puck. It started last season and hasn't gotten any better over the summer.
I'm not saying that he's necessarily finished at the NHL level, but this is a guy who needs to get his game back, and he's clearly not going to get that opportunity in Tampa Bay. Nor likely anywhere else in the league with another year on his contract and a cap hit of $2.867 million. In the pre-cap days someone might have taken a flyer on him, but now, that's a lot of coin and cap space to risk on a guy who is a project.
I think Lyle has it right: the rest of this year in the AHL, a buy out next summer, and (I hope) a fresh start somewhere else. The downside is that'll be a $1 million a year hit against the Tampa Bay salary cap with nothing to show for it.
The best scenario would be Denis getting his game back in Norfolk, and returning to form next season on the Tampa Bay roster.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on December 28th at 3:49 PM.
Well if Marc Denis dosen't start playing better by January, I think the Lightning should keep on him waveirs if another team claims him or trade him before the trade deadline begins in February.
Your comparison isn't completely accurate as it doesn't take in the whole picture.
First, Tampa Bay has a self-imposed salary cap ceiling of about $45 million. Those other teams are willing to spend to the salary cap limit (and beyond). That's a $5 million disadvantage to TB compared to those other teams, and the amount TB spends on those four talents is disproportionate to the rest of their roster, as will be shown below.
Next, you calculated yearly salaries instead of salary cap numbers. For example, the Rangers are on the hook for only half of Jagr's salary (Washington pays the other half) and Shanahan is in the top four with his potential bonuses (edging Lundqvist out of the quartet), so their total cap hit for their four most expensive players is only $24,647,143, roughly $5 million less than you showed. I've similarly recalculated the other team's top for players by their cap numbers, based on data from www.nhlscap.com, as reflected on the table below.
With these revised calculations, a truer comparison would be to look at each team's salary cap expenditures on their four most expensive players as a percentage of currently projected final cap payroll (source: www.nhlscap.com):
So, in real dollar cap teams, of the teams you listed the Lightning are only plus/minus $1 million in payroll. But in terms of top four players as a percentage of the rest of the payroll, Tampa Bay clearly leads the pack.
What do we find with our analysis?
The four teams you compare to Tampa Bay are currently playoff clubs, albeit in the bottom tier of their conferences. Colorado and Anaheim both have goaltenders in their top four players and, coincidentally or not, are the most balanced of the five clubs. (If we go to a top five, the Rangers and the Flyers have a goalie in the mix too.)
Colorado is actually the exception that proves the rule, as Jose Theodore is in the top four players (a grossly overpaid back-up) but the team has enough low-priced talent that they've been able to overcome him.
The Rangers have considerable roster problems -- a poor defense and only two blueliners signed beyond this season (rookie Staal and farmhand Pock) -- and Anaheim had trouble last season re-signing their talent, and looks to have trouble again this summer.
As for the Lightning? Given that Tampa Bay decided to play at a $5 million disadvantage, they have disproportionately paid their top four players and don't have enough cheap talent (like Colorado) to balance out the roster. Moveover, because they overpaid Marc Denis, they've further limited their options in addressing their goaltending problem.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
