Tuesdays with Dani: Brutal special teams and trades

The Lightning better keep an eye on their rearview mirror because with that win over the Penguins last night, the Caps move into within 1 point of Tampa Bay in the division standings. The Lightning only have two more games in their homestand to pick up some points before heading on the road for the first time in a month.

Here are your links for this week:

Lightning links:

• Tampa Bay's special teams have been brutal lately. "I slept two hours last night and one the night before," Boucher said Monday. "I know what the numbers are.". To try break up the routine of this homestand, Boucher had a team golfing trip after practice yesterday and has the team practicing today at the Germain Arena in Estero
• Steven Stamkos says he's lucky he didn't break his ankle from that hit from Mike Weaver this past weekend (Lightning Strikes)

The rest of your links are after the jump...

• Mike Corcoran is calling for the ice crew member who swung the octopus around last week in Tampa to be fired (ESPN 1040)
• TBO.com has a six part video series on the coaches of three Tampa Bay pro sports teams, Guy Boucher, Raheem Morris (of the Buccaneers) and Joe Madden (of the Ray), as they discuss coaching and leadership /

Links from around the NHL

• Yesterday, GM of the Penguins Ray Shero traded Alex Goligoski to the Dallas Stars for James Neal and Matt Niskanen (TSN)
  
• The Pensblog has some thoughts on the trade complete with a video of Wham's 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'
• The Board of Governors approves the sale of the Buffalo Sabress to Terry Pegula (NHL)
• The NHL inks a $375 million sponsorship deal with Molson Coors to be the 'Official beer of the NHL' (TSN)
• Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks traded spots with Stamkos over the weekend for the points lead, but is not worrying about it since there is over 20 games to go and a lot of things can happen with that many games left
• Dan Hamhuis is coming back from his third concussion of his career says he would consider retirement if he felt he was risking his quality of life after his hockey career (Globe and Mail)
  
• Justin Bourne in the USA Today: GM's learning that they can be aggressive at the trade deadline
• Bob McKenzie blogs on TSN: trade market as hot as it's been post-lockout
• Behind the Net's league of extraordinary statisticians looks at the value of a draft pick. The common answer is "it depends".
  
• Blackhawks Down Low has a photoshop exploration on: the many drunken moments of Patrick Kane
• In another photoshop exploration, Pass it to Bulis has the many sides of Raffi Torres as a bowling ball
• At the beginning of the season St. Louis had an 'every game counts' marketing campaign where season ticket packages were offered at half-price. The catch was that if the Blue made the playoffs, the other half would be due, but it looks like they won't make the playoffs. The Fan590 of St. Louis looks into how much the team will end up losing is ticket revenue due to their campaign backfiring.
• CBC extends Don Cherry's contract on Hockey Night in Canada (Globe and Mail)
• DGB reveals what the new contract for Cherry actually entails, such as "In an effort to silence the chorus of critics who constantly demand that he be fired, each Cherry appearance will now be preceded by a brief reminder that he's just going to end up being replaced by Mike Milbury."
• Arik Knapp guest blogs at View From My Seats on the state of the Calgary Flames. "The Flames are not a bad team right now, but they’re certainly not a good one, and have little hopes of making it there in the near future." Awesome.
  
• Combining her master's paper with hockey, Jenna from Hipchecks writes her paper on the NHLPA's hiring of Donald Fehr