Sports: Former bright spot sees Lightning's bright future

Former bright spot sees Lightning's bright future

Wendel Clark saw ugly things in his time in Tampa, but thinks things will get better.

By TOM JONES

CHICAGO -- He was the lone star on the team with no stars.

Wendel Clark. You remember him, right? He was a -- no, make that the -- Lightning bright spot last season.

Then again, that's kind of like saying you are the star of A Chorus Line -- in Peoria. You don't exactly have much competition for the lead role.

Clark saw it all in Tampa Bay. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Minus the good. The Lightning's lone representative in the All-Star Game (hey, every team had to have at least one) grew up in hockey-crazy Canada, played in hockey-crazy Toronto. But he never saw anything as crazy as what he saw last season in Tampa Bay. And while he is too classy to poke fun or criticize, if you read between the lines, you'll see Clark knew the Lightning was doomed to fail almost as soon as last season started.

And that for once, maybe for the first time ever, the Lightning could be on the right track.

"First off, injuries really played a big part last season," said Clark, who signed with the Chicago Blackhawks during the summer and played against the Lightning on Friday. "We were .500 when (Daren Puppa) went down. When you lose a guy like that, it is hard to recover. We just had too many injuries."

Clark witnessed injuries to nearly everyone on the Lightning roster, but he also witnessed one of the most bizarre incidents in Lightning history on Nov. 10, 1998. At the time, the Lightning was the surprise of the league after a 6-2-2 roll put the Lightning at .500. Then it happened. The speech.

On the morning of a game, then-owner Art Williams spoke to the team for nearly 40 minutes -- cutting into the players' normal routine of getting home for pregame meal and nap. That night, the Lightning lost 10-2 to the Rangers.

It got worse. The Lightning lost 11 of the next 12 games. By that time, Williams started calling the team "pansies" and stopped going to games. From Nov. 10, the date of Williams' speech, to Feb. 13, the Lightning went 5-32-2. By that time, Williams has posted a "For Sale" sign on the lawn.

"Art was a real rah-rah type of guy," Clark said. "I think his heart was in the right place, but he never did realize that you can't turn a team around overnight. He started to get antsy, and that was probably the worst thing you could have done in our situation. We needed patience."

Clark continued to thrive as the Lightning continued to dive. He scored 30 goals before the Lightning traded him to Detroit in March. He was one of the few valuable pieces the Lightning had to barter.

"When you have a young team that's struggling, you need to look at the big picture, and I'm not sure (Williams) saw the big picture," Clark said. "He was going for the quick fix, and you can't do that when you're trying to rebuild. But he was a good guy.

"The new owners, though, seem to be looking at the big picture and they have their hand in the whole thing: the team, the arena, the land around the arena. They are big picture people, and that's what the Lightning needs now. But no quick fix."

New GM Rick Dudley agrees with Clark. But only to a point.

"We have short-term goals and long-term goals," Dudley said. "Our short-term goal is to be the most improved team in hockey. No, it's no a quick-fix thing. But we want to win."

Clark things the foundation for the Lightning to win is in place. He likes young players such as Vincent Lecavalier and Pavel Kubina. He thinks the off-season moves to improve the defense and goaltending should help. And he believes the Lightning can become what it was a few years ago.

"I remember when they first came in the league and the excitement there was down there," Clark said. "It can be that way again. And then you'll start to see free agents go there. It could end up as a great team."