Stupidity In The Sun Shine State?

1) Two of the biggest late summer deals have involved both teams from Florida. First the Mezsaros trade from Ottawa to Tampa Bay. Last weekend, Tampa Bay traded away not only their first-round pick but also two very decent defencemen (Filip Kuba and Alexandre Picard) to the Ottawa Senators for Andrej Meszaros. Many have said that the deal was 'forced' upon the Senators by an attempt by the Lightning to sign the RFA defensemen to an offer sheet. The problem is that TB didn't have the requisite assets to satisfy such an attempt. If this is true, why would they try? They would have needed a 1st, 2nd and 3rd round pick IF Ottawa failed to match the reported 5 mil/year deal The problem is that TB didn't have a 3rd rounder to give.(Traded to Pitt for negotiating rights).

2) In our opinion they ended up giving up MORE than they would have if they had made the rumored offer sheet of 5 mil. They would have done better if they had dealt an asset to the Penguins to re-acquire the pick first, THEN make the offer sheet. Yes, Meszaros is a good player, but the Sens received guys and a pick that are usually given in return for a proven vet. Andres is NOT yet in that class. To compound this error the Lightning then signed the 3rd year pro Slovak to a huge 6 year deal. Tampa may still not be done dealing, but as with their neighbors to the east, the Lightning's biggest team issue is defense. This deal does NOT improve that position. Right now Paul Ranger and Meszaros are the 'vets' on the back line. For all the fire power/depth they have up front, they better get great goaltending from Kolzig and Smith else they're gonna lose a bunch of 7-5 games this season

3) Next we have the Florida Panthers dealing for Brian McCabe from the Maple Leafs. Of the two 'bad' deals, this is the most inane in our opinion. The Leafs were in desperation mode. They HAD to dump Mccabe before training camp. Some were even thinking they would demote him/tell him to stay home if he continued to defy their requests to be traded. Certainly any team dealing for him would seem to be in a position of strength, right? Well in dealing for McCabe the Panthers added needless payroll at a time when they were supposedly trying to resign Bowmeester to a long term deal. Most of all this deal does NOTHING to improve the defense of Florida. Probably their biggest team weakness, just got weaker. Sure Brian will probably put up a decent number of points, but at the expense of the sanity of his new coach and his goalie, Thomas Vokoun.

4) So overall we'd have to say that BOTH Florida teams did NOT improve themselves with these deals, and could have done a far better job improving their teams. As of this writing both teams have NOT addressed their respective biggest weakness; Team defense. It may be a long season in the sun shine state!