In Prague, Czech Republic, both the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning hockey teams have been practicing and acting as tourists for the past week. Now that their October 4th and 5th showdowns are approaching, there is little time for tourism anymore. Each team needs one more day of good practice and one more night of good sleep.

Then, it’s showtime.

To the players and coaches, these matches must be treated as just another day at the office. Very simple math actually: Win and take your two points. They can’t afford to be distracted by the foreign land, signs, or people. They need to even put out of their minds the fact that the very ice they will be playing on will be different; slightly smaller than an NHL rink.

To the NHL executives, on the other hand, these matches are part of the attempt at NHL globification; the hopes of spreading the popularity of the NHL overseas and to open up new markets of sales. The executives aren’t necessarily concerned with the way the game plays out, provided it generates a lot of buzz and excitement. Other than that, they could care less who wins, loses, or does what.

The players will want to give the crowd their money’s worth, however. Both the Rangers and Lightning are coming into the new season as enigmas. Experts can’t really figure them out. They’ll both want to make a strong charge out of the gates and give the experts something to talk about.

 

When they drafted him back in June, the Tampa Bay Lightning had extremely high hopes for Steven Stamkos. This past Saturday night, in a preseason match against the defending Eastern Conference champion Pittsburgh Penguins, Tampa Bay was reassured that the number one overall draft pick was a solid choice as the Lightning went on to a 5-4 win.

The 18-year-old Canadian, who had grown up in the Ontario Hockey League, proved that he was definitely meant to play in the NHL. Expected to center the Lightning second line, Stamkos demonstrated his nerves and abilities against Pittsburgh captain and 2005 1st round draft pick Sidney Crosby. Of the nine faceoffs in which the two met, Stamkos won 5.

And while Stamkos had no regulation play goals, he displayed his acumen during the shootout against Penguin goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Stamkos easily guided a powerful wrist shot past Fleury for the game-winner.

Stamkos is expected to make large contributions to the Lightning team this year and will be called upon to do so in the season opener against the Rangers on Oct 3 in Prague.

The Tampa Bay Lighting has signed a three year contract amounting to $2.625 million to rope in the No 1 pick in the NHL draft, Steven Stamkos, into their team. Stamkos is determined to make the most of this opportunity and wants to make it big this forthcoming NHL season. He said that he will be working with his new teammates at the practice camp and will be able to work on developing an excellent rapport with the players of the Lightning team. He feels that he is ready for the big challenge of NHL and will be able to prove his detractors wrong. There is no doubt that there will be huge rush for tickets by the Lightning fans to the upcoming season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning has made their first selection in the first round of NHL Draft last Friday when they picked up center player Steven Stamkos as their numero uno pick. The Lightning general manager Jay Feaster appreciated the efforts of the new ownership chairperson, Oren Koules, in picking up 18 year old Stamkos into the Lightning squad. Stamkos is also very happy to be representing Tampa Bay in the NHL season ahead and is elated to be among the likes of star players like Vincent Lecavalier. The new hockey season is going to a great sporting extravaganza and there is no doubt that fans will buying tickets to watch their favorite teams perform.

John Tortorella, who was reigning as the hockey coach of Tampa Bay Lightning from 2001, was removed from his office before the termination of his contract. The General Manager of

Tampa Bay, Jay Feaster was finding it difficult to remove him from the post as he was the only coach to take the team to win its one and only Stanley Cup, which helped in

Tampa Bay fans purchasing many tickets to witness the games. Tortorella took over the team while it was going through a bad phase and was able to completely change the attitude of the players and bring them to the level of match winners in NHL in three years time. There are speculations that Barry Melrose would be the successor of Tortorella.

Ilya Kovalchuk’s real accomplishment came when his awesome performance in Tampa Bay cracked the Top 3 on SportsCenter’s top plays. He is definitely doing something special getting a hockey match into the ESPN highlight mix on a college football Saturday. That was perfect, and everybody after the match was talking about how it all started in Ottawa. The club, right now, feels like they can come back on anyone. A breakdown by The Falconer points out that Kovalchuk contributed to 54.3 percent of Atlanta points this year, more than any other player in the League.

Jaromir Jagr scored with only 9:15 remaining yesterday night to help the Rangers to a 3-1 win over Tampa Bay. Former Wing Shanahan connected for another power-play goal a couple of minutes later, with assists from Jaromir Jagr and Chris Drury, to seal the Rangers’ 2nd win in 7 matches (2-4-1). Dawes scored the 1st for New York, who have an NHL-low ninteen goals in eleven games. Lecavalier scored his 9th on a 2nd-period penalty shot for Tampa Bay– 5-0-1 at home, 0-4 on the road.