Vincent Lecavalier: The Man, The Myth.

For the Lightning in Tampa Bay, there's a lot of talk now about coaches, draft picks, and free agents. I'm glad to hear that there's a little less talk about the Lightning's captain, Vincent Lecavalier. In the middle of the season, there was talks of him being traded, his poor play being attribute to him not caring, blah blah blah. By the end of last season, he was playing similar to his old self, but not quite, and here's why.

His Teammates

What kind of player is Vinny? The answer is what kind of player isn't Vinny? He can shoot, pass, check, and lead. Last season, he didn't seem like a motivated player. Let's examine a line he was on for a lot of the season.

Vinny was put on a first line with Alex Tanguay, a goal scorer, and Ryan Malone, a power forward. That leaves Vinny to be a playmaker. Take the zone, make the pass or put the puck in the havoc that Malone is creating in front of the net. At the beginning of the season, Malone was the garbage man, cleaning up every puck that came his way, but where was Tanguay? When teams started wising up to Malone's ways, Vinny began shooting more, or getting double teamed when trying to take the zone, making it hard to really establish a forecheck. Where was Tanguay? 10 goals in an 80 game season is not a shooter, that's called a bad signing. Vinny was asleep for half the season and still came up with 24 goals. Vinny spent a lot of time being shuffled around with other players, occasionally with Marty St. Louis where he met some mild success, and on the power play with Steven Stamkos, but he spent most of the season with Alex Tanguay, who didn't do much of anything, and with everyone else playing fairly well together, what incentive was there to put Vinny on a line where he would produce?

In addition, there was a lot of talk about how Vinny wasn't shooting enough or not going hard enough into the boards to fight for the puck. These things might seem true, but I always noticed Vinny's lack of support. Malone is supposed to be the grinder along the boards while Vinny gets open. You see Malkin and Crosby do this all the time when out of the ice together in Pittsburgh. They circle each other, getting open, grinding for position until they can dish to other side of the ice (where Tanguay could strike, though he didn't) or at the point for our defensemen (what defensemen?) to put the puck on net.

My solution: Put the hustle and skill back into Vinny's line. If we've learned anything from this past season, it's that Tanguay sucks and that Stamkos can score in the most absurd ways possible. So the first line should be Steven Stamkos, Steve Downie, and Vinny. If Stammer and The Hammer centered by Vinny doesn't get you excited, there's no changing your mind; And save your breath about Stammer being a center for my other article, the kid's a shooting winger, not a playmaking center. Look what you get: Vinny takes the zone, Hammer follows up and creates havoc, grinds on the boards, creates space for Vinny and/or Stammer to pass and shoot all over the place. You would see a new man out there on the ice. That line would score goals, swallow suns, and destroy worlds. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

The Curse of the "C" and the Nagging Injury

Did anyone besides Torts ever notice that Vinny played like garbage with the "C" on his jersey? I don't think that he's a bad captain, per se, but you don't really hear about him "captaining" as much as you would some other captains around the league. Contrary to what this section's title's suggests, I don't think that the "C" is a curse for Vinny; I think it's an added responsibility that Vinny has to grow into a little more. He was stripped of it once before for his lackluster performance and selfish play. Maybe he is being too conscious about non-selfish play? It's not really for us to say, but it's something to think about.

Another big what if was the injury that Vincent sustained a few years back. After the 07-08 season, Vinny had surgery on his left wrist to fix a nagging injury. One year later, after the 08-09 season, he had another surgery on the wrist. I feel that he may have been playing on an injured wrist for almost a complete season in 2008-2009, and finally had it fixed the right way, only to come back unsure of how fixed it really was in 2009-2010. How would you feel if you had to have surgery two years in a row? Probably unsure of how much stress that wrist could take, especially in a hard-hitting game like hockey. Again, it's not for us to say.

To me, all the trade rumors and talk of poor play may have hurt his feelings and made him play worse, or even lit a fire under him to start bringing sexy back towards the end of next season. My point is that Vincent Lecavalier has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest asset to the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise and will continue to do so for the rest of his career. He is one of the greatest players who has one of the greatest characters and attitudes towards the game that our team will ever see. He loves Tampa Bay and we should love him back, despite a couple crappy seasons.