Bill Clement

A few months after Oren Koules became the owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning he hired Barry Melrose, who had been out of coaching for 13 years, to be the team’s head coach.

On Nov. 14 Koules and co-owner Len Barrie fired Melrose just 16 games into his first season behind the Tampa Bay bench, replacing him with assistant coach Rick Tocchet on an interim basis. At the time the Lightning stood fourth in the Southeast Division with a record of 5-7-4.

Melrose failed with the Lightning for several reasons including not being completely supported and empowered by ownership to do things his way. It didn’t help him that Koules and Barrie appear to be not on the same page. If a franchise has multiple owners in charge, it needs to have consensus at the very top. If firing Melrose was the right move, it indicates that the decision to hire him was the wrong move. What does this say about ownership’s ability to build and lead an organization?

Some believe that while Koules hired Melrose, it was Barrie who fired him. For Tampa Bay to start moving in the right direction, having ownership on the same page is paramount. There needs to be a consistent and unified message from the top. That’s a tenet of running a good business and a tenet of running a good professional hockey franchise.

The ownership of this team is on a real learning curve when it comes to operating a NHL franchise. Koules and Barrie would probably be the first ones to admit that. Melrose goes on their record as a mistake but one can’t help wonder about his being given only 16 games to prove himself.

The Lightning should get better under Tocchet but ownership has to get out of his way and do the same thing when it comes to general manager Brian Lawton, who is bright, knowledgeable and aggressive when he has to be. Lawton can get from his owners the type of players and the type of team they desire but then they must leave him to his work.

Tocchet, a former NHL player who retired in 2002, has also been an assistant coach with Colorado and Phoenix but he’s never been a head coach at any level so he faces a learning curve. That said Tocchet, who returned to the NHL in February after taking a two-year leave of abscense following his guilty plea for conspiracy and promoting gambling, has a tremendous amount of head coaching potential. That leaves only the question of whether he is ready now to be a head coach. How quickly he masters the learning curve in his new role will be pivotal to his chances at success. Will Koules and Barrie be any more patient with Tocchet than they were with Melrose? That’s the big question since some of the challenges Tocchet is facing are the same ones Melrose was facing. Working in Tocchet’s favor is that he has remained close to the game since retiring and unlike Melrose is not coming back into the NHL after a 13-year absence.

The complaint the players had with Melrose — whether it was voiced to ownership or not — was about a lack of structure, a lack of a solid game plan every time they took the ice. Tocchet will provide the team with the structure it was lacking under Melrose. The earth has been shifting under the Lightning and Tocchet needs to get the team to find its footing. The players need to have confidence in his coaching so they believe they have a chance to win each time they hit the ice.

Over the summer Lawton made many changes to the roster. Sixteen of the Lightning players have been with Tampa Bay for fewer than 40 games and the majority of this group came to the team in the offseason. Patience and stability are needed from the coach right on up to the owners.

The Lightning have plenty of offensive firepower so their struggles to score this season are somewhat mystifying. It just has not yet come together this season for them offensively, although there have been some positive early signs under Tocchet.

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The play of Steve Stamkos is one of those signs. The rookie center, who was drafted No. 1 overall last June, has to play more and Tocchet is seeing to that. Stamkos simply did not play enough under Melrose and that likely helped cost Melrose his job. In Melrose’s last game as coach, Stamkos was on the ice for 9:51 and did not see time on the power play. In Tocchet’s first game as coach Stamkos’ playing time rose to 15:10 and two nights later he logged a season-high 17:55 while getting nine shots on goal.

Stamkos must not only get more minutes than he was getting under Melrose, he must get ample time on the power play. Many scouts deemed Stamkos the player in the draft who was most ready for the NHL and he can put up numbers. I’m very impressed with him. He has an unbelievable release, a lethal shot and he knows how to get open. Players of any age who are used to putting up significant numbers lose confidence when those numbers drop sharply. So getting the ice time to generate the numbers is vital to Stamkos’ confidence as well as to Tampa Bay’s fortunes.

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