The Tampa Bay Lightning, considered to be an up-and-coming franchise two years ago after an exciting playoff series against the Philadelphia Flyers, are now the league's worst team, virtually in a confused state, and once again at the bottom of the standings.

How did the club fall so far so fast? Let's examine the club from top to bottom and see just what went wrong.

Ownership - It is no secret that the club is for sale. In fact, it has been a couple of years since the club was put on the open market. Steve Oto, the Lightning president is in charge of finding new ownership. Thus far, this effort have been unsuccessful, leading one to believe that it might be some time before this team is stable.

Management - Phil Esposito has been the club's general manager for six seasons. In that time, the club has gone from an expansion team to a hard working, overachieving, playoff pretender to a club that is in disarray.

Much of the fault can lie with Esposito, whose player transactions of the last three years can be judged as failures, especially the Chris Gratton fiasco of this past summer.

Gratton, one of the top young players in the league, signed a free agent sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers. Esposito, in an utter panic, traded the tough winger to the Blackhawks. The trade went to arbitration with the Flyers saying that they signed him to an offer sheet prior to the trade. The Flyers won the case and Esposito was forced to deal with the fact that the Lightning could not compete financially with the top clubs in the league.

Esposito's biggest acquisition of last season, Dino Ciccarelli, did not want to play here and now finds himself in Miami. In the Gratton deal, Esposito acquired Mikael Renberg and Karl Dykhuis. Renberg has been a virtual flop, injuries notwithstanding, while Dykhuis will never be compared to Ray Bourque - or even Phil Bourque for that matter.

Esposito has thrown in the towel for this season, although he will not admit that publicly. But his trades which have brought in Darcy Tucker, Dave Wilkie, Jody Hull, Steve Kelly, Jason Bonsignore and Mark Fitzpatrick indicate that he is now looking toward the future rather than the present.

Coaching - Jacques Demers, fresh from an animated press conference announcing his hiring, quickly found out what his predecessors (Terry Crisp and Rick Patterson) already knew. At times, the Lightning are a lazy bunch, prone to mistakes at both ends of the ice, and lacking in direction.

"The cheating will stop," he promised fans. The question is when?

Recently he has come under some criticism from parts unknown. But with the Lightning in the middle of a 16-game winless streak (their second of the season), Demers lashed out at his critics.

"We all work well together," he said. "I know what I am doing. If they don't like it, change coaches. Coach No. 4 should come in. Let's change coaches if it's the coach...it always seems to be the coach.

"There is no question this will be a good hockey club, but we've had to use 30 different line combinations in the last five or six games."

At this point in the game, Demers is a good fit with his players. They seem to respect him and the majority will play hard for him. However, each game there seems to be one or two players floating.

So far, the cheating has not stopped.

Offense (or lack thereof) - Amazing, with 56 games played, Tampa Bay's leading scorer has 29 points. Enough said.

Defense - Karl Dykhuis is the club's most consistent defenseman. That is enough to scare any goaltender - if he is on the same team.

The addition of Bryan Marchment has provided the club with some toughness, but he is more than likely going to be suspended for ten games for kneeing Kevin Dineen of the Carolina Hurricanes, pending a league hearing.

Cory Cross, Yves Racine, and Jamie Huscroft, are at best sixth or seventh defenseman on most teams. In Tampa, they are 3-5.

Goal - Daren Puppa, the number one goalie, is out indefinitely with back spasms. Number two goalie, Cory Schwab is out indefinitely with a severely sprained ankle. Number three goalie Mark Fitzpatrick has played well enough to create a problem if and when the other two return to the lineup.

Injuries - It is no secret that the lightning have been decimated by injuries. Brian Bradley has just played 14 games due to various ailments and is probably gone for the season. John Cullen has missed the entire season due to cancer. Other players which have spent considerable time on the disabled list include Mikael Renberg, Mikael Andersson, and Vladimir Vujtek.

If one good thing comes from this season, it's that the Lightning will have the first draft pick in next year's draft and will be able to choose Vincent Lecavalier. However, if the Lightning uphold their tradition, they will probably loose the lottery pick to the Colorado Avalanche, who, at the present time, have four first-round picks.

Lightning fans beware, this is only the beginning.

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