Eagles celebrate NHL affilation

LOVELAND, Colorado — The National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning welcomed their newest minor league affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, into the fold by staging an NHL pre-season game on the Eagle’s home ice. Aside from this new affiliation, there are several Colorado connections with the Lightning and also a few with last night’s Tampa opponent, the Phoenix Coyotes.

Tampa Bay’s newly signed, highly talented veteran left wing Alex Tanguay was an integral part of the most recent (2001) Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup winning team.
Skating on a line with center ice man Vincent Lecavalier and right winger Martin St. Louis is expected to ignite Tanguay’s competitive fires after a mediocre season in Montreal.
Another former Avalanche player, Center Brett Mclean, is currently on a tryout with the Lightning.
Lightning head coach Rick Tocchet was an Avalanche assistant coach during Tony Granato’s first head coaching tenure. Tocchet was also an assistant in Phoenix during the 2005-06 season.
Jim Hammet, a former Colorado Avalanche scout and current Tampa Bay Lightning Director of Player Personnel also happens to be the Colorado Eagle’s President and General Manager, Chris Stewart’s, brother-in-law.
Peter Forsberg is the oft injured Avalanche Center who just recently signed with Modo of the Swedish Elite League. Fellow Örnsköldsvik, Sweden native and Lightning rookie defenseman, Victor Hedman, the second player drafted in the NHL entry draft this Summer, had previously played with Modo.
When asked if he would like to play against Forsberg if the talented center was able to complete a return to the NHL, young Hedman had this to say,”No! That’s going to be hard, that’s going to be very hard!”
Hedman went on to talk about the possibility of Forsberg returning to the NHL, “Obviously he (Forsberg) has a big heart for Colorado for sure but I don’t know where he is going (to play) in the NHL. He will make any team so much better.”
The first goal for Tampa Bay in this game was scored by Ryan Malone off a redirection of Hedman’s booming shot from the blue line. (Although in typical self critical Forsbergesque fashion, Hedman insisted he did not play very good.)
The Phoenix Coyotes current Colorado connections include former Avalanche players Radim Vrbata and Kurt Sauer.
A skilled sniper much like his friend, Czech Republic countryman, and Colorado Avalanche mentor, Milan Hedjuk, Vrbata scored the first Phoenix goal and also scored in the shoot out to keep alive the Coyotes chances and gave Peter Mueller the opportunity to win the game.
Sauer, a solid, dependable stay at home defenseman continues to make a strong contribution to the Coyotes improving defensive corps.
The scoring in the Coyotes 4 -3 shoot out victory over the Lightning went like this:
Ryan Malone, assisted by Victor Hedman, scored the first goal for Tampa Bay in the first period.
Vrbata scored on the power play for Phoenix early in the second period and two minutes later, the Coyotes took a 2 to 1 lead on Scottie Upshall’s deflection off a Tampa defender’s skate.
Steven Stamkos, last season’s first overall draft pick, scored a power play goal to tie the game at 2 to 2 before the end of the second period.
The Tampa Bay number one line of LeCavalier, Tanguay and St. Louis were responsible for putting up the third Lightning goal with Lecavalier scoring it early in the third period.
Mere seconds later, Upshall got on the board again with the tying goal.
The score remained 3 to 3 through the third period and the five minute overtime period.
In the shootout Jason Labarbera stopped shots from Mattias Ohlund and Tanguay, allowing only LeCavalier’s shot.
Antero Nittymaki held off the Coyote’s Shane Doan but gave up goals to Vrbata and Peter Mueller who registered the game winner.
Unfortunately, this game  was not as well attended as the Colorado Eagles and their NHL Affiliate, Tampa Bay Lightning, would have hoped. One can ascribe this to the family-oriented fan base of the Eagles and the fact that this was a mid-week game between two relatively unfamiliar NHL teams who commanded NHL-level prices.
Just 3,100 tickets were sold in the 5,298 seat arena.
Contact the author/photographer at terry.sanford@prohockeynews.com