Lightning Fire GM Lawton, Coach Tocchet
 

The Tampa Bay Lightning have relieved General Manager Brian Lawton and Head Coach Rick Tocchet of their duties, effective today, Chairman Jeff Vinik announced this morning. The search for a new General Manager will begin immediately. Assistant General Manager Tom Kurvers will assume responsibility for Lightning hockey operations until a new General Manager is hired. After the new General Manager is hired, he will select the new Head Coach.

“Now that the 2009-10 Tampa Bay Lightning season has concluded, we have decided to replace Brian and Rick,” said Vinik upon making the announcement. “Our hockey operations department needs a fresh start in order to help us fulfill our goal of being a world-class organization. I’d like to thank both Brian and Rick for their dedication and service to the Lightning.

“Our search for a Chief Executive Officer is well underway and we are in the process of interviewing candidates. After the new CEO is hired, he will hire our new General Manager in time to prepare for the draft and free agency periods.”

Lawton was hired by the Lightning in June, 2008 and then named General Manager on October 22, 2008. As General Manager, he was responsible for all aspects of hockey operations, including the coaching and scouting staff, player procurement and development and minor league affiliations and operations.

Tocchet was hired on July 9, 2008 as the team’s Associate Coach. He was elevated to the position of interim head coach just 16 games into the 2009-10 season and named head coach on May 11, 2009. Tocchet was 19-33-14 in 2008-09 and his Lightning team went 34-36-12 this past season.

Sorry to see Tocchet go, but thrilled Lawton is gone!

Hopefully, whoever the new gm and coach are enjoy tough hockey.

Whoever comes in is going to have quite the mess to clean up down there.

I've heard Phil Esposito will be the new GM.

Good for the TBL. Maybe they can get some respect back into the organization. I think the fans and STH's have suffered long enough.

Random thoughts:
I wonder if Lawton will ever get another job in hockey? lol:D

So long as MacLean isn't GM I am happy.

Sad for Toch but he will have another opportunity somewhere. Same with Walz.

Man, this organization seems to be in shambles. They have a ton of talent, but just can't translate that to wins. Firing Lawton was step one to sorting it out though.

Enter Mike Keenan.

Egads, no!

I'll take him and his no nonsense motto. For one, we'll see tons of fights. And two, maybe he'll talk some sense into Lecavalier and his b.s. attitude.

All that said, its good to see Lawton and his ******y haircut leave town

Good for TB on Lawton. Hopefully Atlanta can follow suit and fire Waddell and Anderson as well.

Its a shame about Rick but Lawton had to go

Tampa fans, just pray that the team doesn't promote Mike Sullivan. He's a giant POS and he'll pussify that team in notime.

Lawton just did an interview on Sportsnet where he pretty much blamed everybody else for the team's problems. He said he has really only had control over the team for 9 months because of Barrie and Koules and he implied that Tocchet was a bad coach. He also didn't deny trying to fire Tocchet earlier in the year, he just said he didn't have the authority to that and he wished that he would have been able to choose his own coach.

Also, according to Nick Kypreos, Doug MacLean is being considered for GM.

Haha, what a piece of s*it.

Tocchet won't be without a job for long.

Probably the best for the Lightning. Time to get a fresh start and a new outlook, but I feel for Tocchet, I thought he was doing an ok job down there, especially with the way Downie and Stamkos progressed this season under his watch.