Tampa Times
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Tampa, FL. - In the past 4 days the General Manager for the Lightning has been a busy man. Three seperate deals have been made in which the Lightning have created more cap space, strengthened their blueline and added to their prospect core.
4 days ago the Lightning shipped prospect Doug O' Brien to Detroit in return for veteran Jaroslav Modry and an un disclosed amount of cash. Modry is a well balanced defencemen offensively and defensively with a nice cheap contract. Modry will more than likely be paired up with Keith Ballard who will be getting the recall now that the Lightning have cap room.
After a days rest GM Chris Joyce pulled the trigger on another deal that saw the expendable Marek Malik and goaltender Jason Labarbera shipped out to Washington in return for defencemen Carlo Colaiacovo and goaltender Jimmy Howard.
GM Joyce had this to say about his second deal in 3 days.
"Since we picked up Modry from Detroit we felt Malik was expendable plus the fact that we picked up Jimmy Howard who is arguably one of the best goaltending prospects in the OTHL right now this trade was a no-brainer. We replace Marek with prospect Carlo Colaiacovo who some have forseen as an elite defensive defencemen, hopefully this change of scenery does him some good as he could be a key part in this deal."
Not done there the Lightning in an obvious salary dump moved center Shawn Bates to Vancouver in return for the UFA winger Peter Schaefer. These two players are pretty much the same except for their salaries and their contract length. in clearing up this salary space the Lightning are expected to call up both Keith Ballard and RJ Umberger
With all this said and done the Lightning have moved alot of salary out and many question if they are done here. Time will only tell, but for now this is how Coach Tortorella sees his lineup unfolding when healthy...
Patrik Elias - Marc Savard - Scott Walker
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Glen Murray
RJ Umberger - Jeff Halpern - Shean Donovan
Taylor Pyatt - Matthew Lombardi - Darren McCarty