New Lightning goalie Ben Bishop has sometimes been hung out to dry by Tampa Bay’s lackluster defending. (Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

It was a nice bit of work by Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman to outbid the competition and add Ben Bishop from Ottawa at the trade deadline. And it was an even neater trick to extend the netminder yesterday with a two-year, $4.6 million deal. That’s a reasonable cap hit for an emerging No. 1 (right around what Corey Crawford and Jimmy Howard currently make), and the short term gives Bishop time to prove himself in the role while allowing Yzerman to beat a fairly hasty retreat if he doesn’t.

Now that he’s committed to two promising but inexperienced goaltenders in Bishop and last summer’s prize acquisition, Anders Lindback, it’s time to get serious about the real problem in Tampa.

Remember Bishop’s flashy debut for the Lightning? The key takeaway from that scintillating performance wasn’t that he recorded a shutout in a 5-0 thrashing of the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s that he faced down a career-high 45 shots in the process.

And that tells you exactly where Yzerman’s full attention should be focused this summer.

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When it comes to defense and goaltending, four Southeast teams rank in the NHL’s bottom 10. (Gerry Broome/AP)

By Allan Muir

Ask any coach and he’ll tell you it’s not how you score that matters, but how many. It’s a pragmatic approach for a sport that judges a winner based on a simple tally rather than the awarding of style points.

But does it also matter who you score against?

That’s the argument being posed this morning on Twitter by some fans and media members who are wondering whether the value of Alex Ovechkin’s stats have to be measured with an eye on the pillowy soft competition he faces in the Southeast Division.

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Wayne Fleming was one of hockey’s most respected minds at many levels of the sport. (Chris O’Meara/AP)

By Allan Muir

Hearts are heavy in the hockey world today with the passing of long-time assistant coach Wayne Fleming.

Fleming succumbed to brain cancer on Tuesday morning. He was 62.

Though he didn’t have the public profile of some in the industry, he was highly respected by his peers as a teacher, a consensus builder, a tactician and a confidante. On the occasions that I dealt with him, he was always courteous, patient and willing to lend his insight, even after a tough loss. Just a genuinely good man.

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Guy Boucher couldn’t survive the lockout-shortened season as Tampa Bay’s head coach. [Chris O'Meara/AP]

By Allan Muir

With 17 games to go and his team five points out of an Eastern Conference playoff berth, Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman had seen enough. He made the decision early this morning to fire coach Guy Boucher, hoping that a different voice would somehow motivate his Lightning into a miraculous stretch run.

You can’t blame him. Something had to be done, especially after dispiriting losses to Toronto and Ottawa this week, and cashiering the coach is the easiest option.

But here’s hoping he took a good long look in the mirror before he pushed him overboard, because it was Yzerman’s own failings that led Boucher out onto the plank.

Remember when Boucher was regarded as a genius after guiding the Lightning to a 23-point improvement back in 2010-11? He had Dwayne Roloson, doing his best Johnny Bower impression, between the pipes.

But there isn’t a coach in the world who looks good when his goaltending stinks. Considering the pair of Johnny Rottens he was dealt this season by Yzerman, it’s amazing Boucher was able to stay in the mix as long as he did.

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By Allan Muir

Joffrey Lupul has played brilliantly in his first two games back with the Maple Leafs since missing most of the season with a broken arm.

We’ll have to wait a while to see if that hot streak continues into game three.

Lupul was handed a two-game suspension today by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for a wildly blatant head shot on Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman in last night’s 4-2 Toronto win.

“As the video shows, after Hedman passes the puck, Lupul approaches from the side and recklessly targets Hedman’s head by elevating and making it the principal point of contact,” Rob Blake said in the DPS’ explanatory video.

By “elevating,” Blake means Lupul left the ice prior to making contact, which he pretty much had to do to avoid slamming into the 6-foot-6 Hedman’s elbow. But once a player “leaves his feet,” he’s asking for trouble from DPS.

Fortunately, Hedman wasn’t hurt on the play and that, combined with Lupul’s absence from the league’s Big Book O’ Mug Shots, added up to the two-gamer and the forfeiture of more than $45,000 in salary.

Was it a fair call? As the season goes on, it’s getting tougher and tougher to compare one suspension to another, but taken on it’s own merits, this one passes the smell test.

By Allan Muir

Good thing the Maple Leafs know how to play without Joffrey Lupul. They could be doing a bit more of it very soon.

Lupul, who just returned to action Saturday after missing the last two months of the season with a broken arm, is all but certain to be suspended after a flagrant elbow to the noggin of Tampa defender Victor Hedman Wednesday night.

This head shot was so blatant it’s sure to end up on the league’s how-not-to video compilation.

Was the hit late? Check.

Was the head the principal point of contact? Check.

Did his skates leave the ice prior to the hit? Oh yeah, they do.

The only mitigating factor in Lupul’s defense is that Hedman, though clearly dazed in the aftermath, was able to return to action later in the period. Hopefully he won’t have any late-onset symptoms in the next 24 hours.

As for Lupul, well, the timing couldn’t have been worse. He was brilliant in his return on Saturday, netting a pair of goals against the Jets, and scored the opening tally in Toronto’s 4-2 win over the Bolts tonight. He was clearly feeling it after that lengthy layoff. Now he’s likely to be out for 2-3 games, which would include a critical home-and-home duet with the Boston Bruins.

And speaking of bad timing: It’s probably best not to knock the block off an opponent when Gary Bettman, Colin Campbell and half of the NHL’s heirarchy are in the building.

Heavy snowfall near Boston’s TD Bank Garden has forced the NHL to postpone tonight’s Bruins-Lightning game.(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Massive snowfall in the Boston area has led the NHL to postpone tonight’s game in Boston between the Bruins and the Lightning.

Although standard practice has always been to stage games if both teams are in town, the league determined that the travel curfew in effect until 4 PM today in Boston would not leave arena employees and security personnel sufficient time to get to the rink.

The league has not yet announced a makeup date, but that process could be a little more difficult than usual given the lockout-shortened schedule. A quick look at openings for the two teams and the TD Garden suggests they may have to wait until April 25 or 26, the season’s final week, to fit it in.

Both teams are expected to fly out of town tonight ahead of games tomorrow: Boston is heading to Buffalo, while the Lightning are off to New York to play the Rangers.

The game was initially scheduled as a 1 PM matinee, but was moved to a 7 PM start yesterday.

Hurricanes fans have been given some nice price breaks by their contrite team. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

MacLean’s (Canada’s leading newsweekly, for the uninitiated) today offered up an interactive overview illustrating how far each NHL team was willing to go to soothe hard feelings in the wake of the lockout.

The magazine’s survey took into account the sort of offers that had an impact on how much a fan might spend to take in their team’s first home game, including ticket prices, processing fees and discounts on merchandise and concessions.

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Alex Ovechkin has a new coach to get used to, and the Rangers may pay a price for their reliance on blocking shots. (Will Schneekloth/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

Every NHL season starts with expectations and conjures up predictions about where teams might finish, but this is a season like no other. You can’t even compare it too closely to the lockout-shortened 1995 campaign, one played with a 26-team NHL, a different conference alignment and playoff format, no shootout or “loser’s point,” and far less parity. And even in a normal season, there is so much uncertainty in sports that preseason predictions are a waste of time.

SI.com colleagues Brian Cazeneuve, Sarah Kwak and Adrian Dater have their thoughts on the upcoming season and you can find them here:

Power Rankings | Milestones | Central | Northwest | Pacific | Southeast | Atlantic | Northeast

Our favorite preseason pastime at Red Light is trying to boil down each team’s success or failure to one or a few essential themes. Each club has them and the answers to these questions, theoretically at least, should go a long way to determining if it plays up to expectations and potential. Keep in mind they all take place within the framework of the shortened season imposing its own unique characteristics on the playoff chase, which we pondered in this post.

Below are the essential questions for each team in the East and here’s the link for teams in the West:

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The gorilla in the room: Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs (right) is a lockout hardliner who some observers fear will make progress impossible at CBA talks even without Gary Bettman and Don Fehr present. (Elise Amendola/AP)

By Stu Hackel

In this corner, meet the six owners who will sit at the bargaining table on Tuesday: Ron Burkle (Penguins), Mark Chipman (Jets), Murray Edwards (Flames), Jeremy Jacobs (Bruins), Larry Tanenbaum (Maple Leafs) and Jeff Vinik (Lightning).

In that corner: Uhhhh….

Who will be in the players’ corner? That’s a tricky question. TSN says Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews will be in New York, but it’s not confirmed that they’ll be at the talks. Yahoo’s Nick Cotsonika tweeted, “A number of players will be in New York tomorrow. Before the meeting with the owners, they will decide who will attend.” So we wait to find out officially who the NHLPA will select to represent it in this unusual session of these CBA talks to end the 79-day lockout, this time without each side’s lead negotiators, Gary Bettman and Don Fehr.

Will the union want to mirror the composition of the owners team with some hardliners, some who are more moderate and some who are less interested in principle and want to play now? Will it want players who work for the owners on the other side, like Sidney Crosby sitting across the table from Burkle? Will Marty St. Louis go face-to-face with Vinik while Ron Hainsey pairs up with Chipman, and someone from the Bruins, Andrew Ference perhaps, chats with Jacobs?

Or maybe the PA would want six enforcers on its side of the table. Can you imagine George Parros, Kevin Westgarth and Paul Bissonette staring down Jacobs and Edwards? That might be fun.

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