This offseason, when Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman and coach Guy Boucher discussed what needed to be done to get the team back into the playoffs, the focus turned quickly to defense. So much attention was placed on the Lightning goaltending situation, but they both knew they had to add at least one top-four defenseman. Preferably a right-handed shot to fit in with Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos on the power play.
In breaking down the market, they realized just how limited the supply was on defense.
"Steve made miracles," Boucher said during a Wednesday phone conversation. "There were five legitimate top-four defensemen available in free agency. We got two of them. Thirty teams were after them. And it totally changed our team."
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- Senior NHL writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Wrote for The Sporting News
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Craig Custance
Craig Custance joined ESPN in September 2011 as an NHL reporter for ESPN the Magazine, ESPN Insider and ESPN.com. A graduate of Michigan State University, he lived for nearly a decade in Georgia working for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he spent time covering the late Atlanta Thrashers. He was the only Thrashers beat writer to get the team to the playoffs.
From 2008-11 he was the national hockey writer for the Sporting News, writing regularly in print and online. A member of the PHWA, he's a proud voter for the major NHL awards and can occasionally defend his selections.
Like hockey, he left Atlanta to return north where he currently lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife Cassie and their three kids.
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