I think there needs to be some ground rules pertaining to the concept of time travel, along the lines of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Because even though time travelers in movies are relatively responsible and well-behaved, there's just too much room for abuse that would result in mayhem. And while it would be great if we could all go back and circumvent horrific events leading up to world wars, far too many of us would waste time having inappropriate interactions with our own ancestors...and that's icky. That's why I am offering Clark's Three Laws of Time Travel.

• You can only go back to the past (I don't need you rubbing your flying car or robot dog or flying robot dog who can drive a car in my face).
• You can only go ONCE (that means if you go back far enough, you have to live through Milli Vanilli. Vanilla Ice and the OK Hockey eras all over again).
• You can only change ONE THING.

With that in mind, plus the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and the intent of making the Tampa Bay Lightning better than they are right now (without sacrificing efforts to build for the future), what ONE THING would you go back and undo prior to the start of the 2011-12 season? Answers from the Raw Charge staff are after the jump. Please share yours in the comments.

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Dear Faculty,

It is the middle of the season and time once again for mid-semester progress reports. As you know, we have with us this year some new students. It is important that we evaluate their progress for our files.o

Members of the "freshman class" of 2011-12 come to us from many different backgrounds. Six of them have also been affiliated with our sister institution, the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League [Mike Angelidis, Pierre-Cedric Labrie, Evan Oberg, Trevor Smith, Dana Tyrell, and J.T. Wyman]. One was with us last season [Tyrell]. Two are transfer students [Oberg and Brendan Mikkelson]. One has been promoted from juniors [Brett Connolly].

Please let us know where these students currently stand. Information about how they complete their assignments will be added to their files for review at the end of the season.

Thank you,

[Very] Interim Dean of Questions of the Week,

CAustin

[Follow after the break for a peek at the students' files.]

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Ah, the NHL All-Star Game. It's a tradition that spans decades, and one that many fans look forward to all year long. It's when the players can let their hair down and not just showcase their skills, but also their personalities.

And it's an event that many would like to do away with altogether.

As with just about everything in the NHL, the All-Star Game is controversial. Not many have complaints about the Skills Competition, just about the game itself. The goalies get shelled, since there's no defense to speak of, the defensemen are just additional forwards on the ice, and in reality, the game showcases goal scoring and not much else.

On top of that, many of the older All-Stars may not want to be there at all. Nicklas Lidstrom and Teemu Selanne both declined the honor in order for younger guys to get a chance. But we all know that altruism isn't entirely without selfishness.

Who wouldn't want a mid-season five-day vacation in the NHL? If, for no other reason, just to heal up a bit? It's not necessarily the big injuries that wear a player down, but the little ones that never entirely heal over the course of the season. Those add up - fast.

My opinion on the All-Star Weekend festivities is that, something needs to be done to help out the goalies. I've always felt bad for them, actually. They should have a more positive role in the festivities, instead of just being a moving target and getting five or so goals scored on them in one period. Perhaps adding a couple of events to the Skills Competition, just for them?

Speaking of the Skills Competition, I've also been saying for years that it ought to be opened up to the entire NHL and not just to those guys chosen for the All-Star Game. Each team ought to run their own Skills Competition, and submit the results to the NHL. I think the top three or four league wide from each event ought to be invited to the All-Star Weekend festivities to compete against each other.

So then we'd get to find out who truly has the hardest shot or who is the fastest skater in the NHL. And, who knows? Maybe some 3rd liner somewhere has an even harder shot than Zdeno Chara does.

I'd keep the game and the draft, but maybe it ought to be 3-on-3 shinny instead of trying to perpetuate this farce that real hockey is being played. And instead of making it a popularity contest with the fans voting, perhaps they ought to take the top players in the major statistical categories thru January 15th or something instead. I'm so tired of the ballot stuffing and the names getting the air time instead of the truly best players in the league making it on to the teams. I have no problem with not all 30 teams being represented so long as the truly best players are invited.

So the question of the week is this: Now that the NHL's All-Star Weekend is over, what would you keep and what would you change about it?

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I love hockey.

I've followed the NHL (and the Lightning) since I was 8. I've played hockey for just as long. I still play. I aspire to have a job in hockey. As in a job I take to retirement. Writer, trainer, player, equipment manager, mascot, ANY job.

Except one.

Head coach.

Being head coach/manager in any professional sport is a death trap. It's a job that requires all the family and personal sacrifice of being a player, with a quarter of the pay, a tenth of the credit when the team is successful, and 150% of the blame when the team isn't. It's a thankless job that requires a guy to manage egos more than strategy, media who have as much sport experience as coaches have privacy, and quicker turn around in expectation than politicians.

It's a profession that can see you sneak into the playoffs as the last seed on the last day of the season and earn some respect one year, and then fall out of the playoffs of the last day of the season the next and lose your job. And that's considered normal.

No thanks.

So, of course, with the Lightning toiling around the bottom third of the Eastern Conference this season, some people want Guy Boucher's head.

I'm not one of them. I think he's done a great job, and the only thing I would change is the one thing that's been supremely undocumented thus far in his tenure: his willingness to absolutely punish his players in practice.

Have you ever seen a report of Boucher absolutely bag-sake the hell of the Lightning? Me neither. Does that mean it hasn't happened? No. But that doesn't mean it has either. That's the one thing I'd change about him. That's it. Some public notification that he is not happy with the team's effort. Is that playing into the media's hand? Maybe. Is that being a good coach? Definitely.

I digress, but it does lead to this week's Question of the Week - open to both the Raw Charge staff and the Lightning Blogosphere: In general, I think most fans support Guy Boucher, and I certainly do, but if you could change just one aspect about how he's handled the team, what would it be?

Answers from the staff and Boltsosphere after the break. But let's hear yours in the comments, yeah?

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Sometimes, games are punctuated by too many penalties and too much time by either (or both) teams short-handed. I'm not trying to present this as a Tampa Bay Lightning issue, but as a general observation of the game of ice hockey.

Of course, certain teams are quite good with the man-advantage, others are not. Not nearly.

In a league that often employs a change for change sake, something that turns the league on its head... Well, I got a "What if?"

What if NHL teams had the option of choosing between a standard power-play or taking a penalty shot instead? Should this be an option?

This is derived in part for the fondness of the penalty shot (the rare happenstance in today's NHL where an infraction happens under specific circumstances and a player will be awarded a one-on-one shot on goal), and the mixed opinion on the post-game shoot-out...

Really, it's just a quirky idea that a coach could opt to have a player take a penalty shot instead of his team getting 2 minutes of man-advantage time on any given infraction. Some teams have largely ineffective power play units that can turn into defensive liabilities (yes, I do mean the Lightning here).

Really, what about it? Yeah, it's a gimmicky idea, as is the two-point conversion in the NFL... Just what it teams could opt to forgo man-advantage time and take a penalty shot instead?

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If you have been listening to the Marek vs. Wyshynski podcast* then you might have heard a hypothetical question come up once or twice on whether you would buy out player X (with no repercussions to your cap hit) if you had one free buyout allowed after the NHL's next Collective Bargaining Agreement has been renegotiated and ratified.

Why would you do this? Let's say for instance that the new CBA causes the cap to down next season or they change how they calculate the cap which currently just keeps increasing every single season at a pretty high rate. Or maybe you just have a bad contract that you want to get out of, and a free buyout could help out how your team in constructed.

So this question got me thinking whether the other writers at Raw Charge would consider buying out Vincent Lecavalier, here's what I asked:

If during the summer during the new CBA negotiations there is an option to buyout ONE player on your team with no repercussions to your team in the future, do you buyout Lecavalier? Why or why not?

Our answers after the jump and let us know in the comments on what YOU would do

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The clock struck midnight, the calendar turned, and we finally put 2011 to bed. In many ways, 2011 was one of the most trying hockey years I've ever experienced, so I was a bit glad to see it go. Because, essentially, lots of bad stuff happened in the 365 days between January 1, 2011 and Saturday, December 31st, 2011. The new year symbolically gives a chance at a new beginning.

Starting from the very first day of the 2011, the hockey world seemed to reel from story to story--player safety, bad refereeing, failing franchises, relocation, realignment. The fighting question, the depression question, the steroid question, the concussion question. And deaths. Deaths from cancer, from overdoses, from suicides, from plane crashes. For much of 2011, hockey hurt.

Out of all of that, what do we take away? What's the most important story of the 2011 calendar year? I guess that depends on what you hope will get fixed. For me, I wish I could say that the Lightning's Cinderella run to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final was the most important story. But it's not the one that affected my life the most.

The story that affected me the most was the death of Wade Belak. Because he was someone who had an impact on my life; because he died so tragically at a moment when everything seemed to be going his way; because we learned so much about the price he paid to do what he did only when it was too late to show our support; because he was funny and loving and smart and sweet and the universe made him feel alone when he wasn't.

Beeker's death affected me more than any other story and changed my relationship with hockey. I still love the game, but I love it with a more complex emotion than before. And I can't ever be innocent about it again. I miss that.

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Nobody anywhere has any idea why we celebrate the arrival of a new calendar year by resolving to change our behavior and/or accomplish new goals. All we know is if you don't make at least one New Year's Resolution, whether or not you actually follow through, your taxes get severely audited. So as a public service to keep you from being exiled to Tax Dodger Island (a place you do NOT want to visit; sure, the beaches are nice but everyone is required to wear bright orange Speedos), we here at Raw Charge are offering a forum for you to present YOUR resolutions. NOTE: U.S. tax law states that it is entirely 100% admissable to make resolutions pertaining to the sport of hockey in general or specific hockey teams if you prefer.

Below the jump you'll see what the staff of Raw Charge is halfheartedly pledging to do in 2012 before failing to act in January, feeling guilty about it in February and losing complete interest in the whole concept around the middle of March. Let us know what YOUR plans are in the comments. Me? I resolve to be as good at what I do as Steven Stamkos, as hardworking as Martin St. Louis and as tanned as Bobby "The Chief" Taylor.

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