Lightning re-acquire center Chris Gratton
Posted By Erik Erlendsson at Jun 13, 2007 at 04:47 PM
Updated Jun 13, 2007 at 07:11 PM
The Lightning hope that the third time is a charm for former
first-round draft pick Chris Gratton, whom Tampa Bay acquired from
Florida Wednesday in exchange for a second round pick either in this
month’s draft or 2008. Gratton waived a no-trade clause in his contract
to return to Tampa for the third time.
Gratton has been a consistent two-way player his entire career and
reliable faceoff performer, but he never bested his breakout season
with the Lightning in 1996-97 when he scored 30 goals and had 201
penalty minutes. After that season, he signed an offer sheet with the
Philadelphia Flyers and never quite lived up to the expectations of his
lofty contract which included a hefty signing bonus in the $8-$10
million range, a burden that he carried with him for a period of time.
After scoring 22 goals his first season with the Flyers, he has never
hit that mark again in time with Buffalo, Phoenix, Colorado and
Florida. But he has been a consistent 15 goal scorer, a reliable
defensive checker and a willing teammate (as we saw in Tampa in 2005-06
when Gratton went after Evgeny Artyukhin once or twice).
Not sure where Gratton will slot in at this point as he has basically
been a third-line center and penalty killer (with some occasional turn
on the power play) for the past few seasons. Personally, I think it’s a
bit of a steep price (the option, by the way is Florida’s to take
either this year or next year) to pay for Gratton who has one more year
left on his contract for $1.5 million. The lower lines are overcrowded
at this point and certainly the possibility exists that Jay Feaster has
more up his sleeve to work on with the draft coming next week. But he
still has to find a second-line forward to play with Brad Richards and
has to sort out the situation in goal.
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