On Friday (11/14) the Tampa Bay Lightning fired head coach Barry Melrose after only 16 games with the team. Granted, the Lightning posted a less than stellar 5-7-4 record leaving them with 14 points and in 4^th place in the Southeast Division. Although the record is not great it is still very early in the season and the newly hired Melrose was not given much of a chance to make any great strides with the team. Tampa Bay is not out of the playoff hunt by any stretch of the imagination after only 16 games and I am not sure that any problems the team may have had are solved by firing the coach. I wrote before about NHL GMs having too quick a trigger and the trend continues. Not every team can win every game and be in first place all at the same time. It is a long season that consists of many good times and bad but the key is to be persistent and to have patience. Tampa Bay spent a lot of money in the off-season putting essentially an entirely new roster together that needs some time to gel as guys get used to playing with one another. No offense to Rick Tocchet but I do not think there is anything he can do that will put the Lightning in a position that is any better than where they already were. Anything short of Tampa Bay winning every game the remainder of the year makes this a boneheaded, not to mention unfair, move on the part of the Lightning management. And this is why Tampa Bay has had little playoff success since winning the Stanley Cup in 2004.