Lightning ship out Volkov?

[yave1964]

This one is a bit of a headscratcher to me honestly. The Bolts sent Volkov to Anaheim for Antoine Morand and a conditional 7th rounder.

 

  There must be more here here. Volkov is not great but he is steady with offensive skill from the back end. He has 3 goals and 5 total points in 19 games, on pace for 12 goals and 20 plus points as a rookie playing low man minutes for a loaded Lightning team. On top of that McDonough is out with injury right now so I dont get trading him unless it is to clear a roster spot for an incoming playoff add.

 

  Morand is a former 2nd rounder form a few years ago who hasnt distinguished himself in a couple of seasons with the Gulls and got passed by guys like Terry, Steel and Zegras so kind of got shuttled aside, he might be a sneaky good add, smallish but said to be hard to play against, a winger, kind of a C minus prospect right now. 

 

  Love it for Anaheim, not so sure yet for Tampa, kind of expecting more to come....

[yave1964]

Just read that the reason for the deal according to Coach Cooper is because Mithcell Stephens is scheduled to come off LTIR and iif they didnt move a forward their cap would have been skewed and they would have only been able to play 5 defenseman so in the cap age it makes a bit more sense. Still a team trying to go on the cheap on the bottom six has now donated a young Voykov and Verhaeghe in a matter of months. I gotta think they could do better fighting the cap. One of the few issues I have noticed with Tampa, who IMHO is the best ran top to bottom organizaiton in all of Hockey.

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

Shame about Volkov.

I have been rooting for him to make and stick with the big club for a few seasons now after watching bits and pieces of his play in the minors.
He honestly at this stage doesn't seem to do anything spectacularly well, but does a bit of everything reasonably well.

On the plus side, has size, a bit of a mean streak, reasonable puck skills, a decent skater, and is still only 23 with room to improve.

On the minus side, he has been given every opportunity to go above and beyond both in the AHL and even played a bit with top players at the NHL level....but has yet to make himself stand apart, or at least be on the same level as any of his more dynamic linemates.

Sometimes his decision making on the ice can be questionable and will many times cough up the puck at absolutely the wrong time because he wasn't aware of who was on the ice and their proximity to him.

If it were all just the same, I would have rather kept Volkov on hand to see if he can develop his positives a bit more than he has to this point.
But I certainly can see why the Lightning have decided to give him up when they have other players both in the minors, and on IR who will be needing their roster spot back.

A 'good problem' the Bolts have is that they can sometimes have TOO MANY good forwards, and a few of them are going to slip through the cracks or fall off their table, and some other team will benefit from that and scoop them up.

Two players in particular who seem to show a quicker rate of progress to their skills that may have made Volkov expendable are Ross Colton and Alex Baret-Boulet.
They have spent time with the big club, have impressed and are further proof that the Lightning, even after losing good players like Volkov, Verhaeghe, and Marchessault, have ocean level depth at the forward position.