Lecavalier can't escape rumored Habs slap shots

MONTREAL – Vincent Lecavalier doesn't deserve this – the constant dogging by curious minds with microphones and recorders, all asking when he's going to get traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Montreal Canadiens.

Good grief.

Here's a player who shrugged off the ridiculously high expectations of a high draft pick (taken No. 1 in 1998) to lead his relatively new team to a Stanley Cup by the end of his sixth season. This was accomplished despite having had a premature captaincy stripped from him early in his career. He put that embarrassment aside, and instead of demanding a trade, he kept his game and team's progress on track.

Here's a player who has endured two difficult seasons – a wretched 2007-08 campaign and a sluggish start to this season – in the only NHL city he has played in because most everyone around him has failed to live up to his bargain, whether it's ownership, management, coaches or teammates. Here's a player who loves playing in Tampa and, assuming we can believe his intentions are sincere, has no desire to go anywhere else. Here's a superstar who should be allowed to enjoy returning to his native city to play in a historic All-Star game, but instead he continually is besieged by rumors and innuendo.

Friday was downright comical, unless you were in Lecavalier's shoes. Instead of being allowed to share a booth with another Eastern Conference All-Star to answer questions from a small group of reporters, Lecavalier immediately was put on stage in a full media conference setting and told questions would last 15 minutes.

What's so bad about a quarter of an hour's time? Well, when it's the same question over and over, you might have a little sympathy for him, too.

After that, he was whisked directly to a live television interview to answer the same question again. And just when he thought it might be over, just a few steps from exiting the spacious ballroom at the luxurious hotel, he was stopped and surrounded by a group of 12 to 15 inquiring minds – many who attended the first Q&A session.

He heard the question in English, he heard it in French. He answered it in both. But is anyone listening?

"Well, they've talked to me, and like they've told everybody else when we got back to Tampa – they had a press conference – and they just said that, first of all, we're not going to trade him," Lecavalier said of the Lightning. " 'If it were to happen, then we would talk to Vinny first.' So I don't think it's anything. They haven't told me anything else, or they've basically said everything in the media.

"What they told you guys, they've told me."

End of story, right? Not a chance. This is Montreal. He is a native son. It's too good to let go. It was too enticing to stop asking after the Lightning's recent West Coast trip – no California vacation for Vinny, that's for sure.

"I was just getting a lot of calls from parents, from family and friends," Lecavalier said. "But it was just all rumors until, obviously, talking a little bit about it with the team and everybody knows here. And what the league came up with was that if something was to happen, they [the Lightning] would come to me and ask me to come up with a list [of trading partners]."

The prevailing wisdom is that while Tampa loves Vinny, and Vinny loves Tampa, the franchise might be facing financial difficulty, and it might be prudent for the Lightning to shed what soon will be an 11-year commitment worth $85 million once Lecavalier's contract extension kicks in during the offseason.

And of course, with Montreal being the center of the hockey universe (sorry, Toronto), and the Canadiens celebrating 100 years of Habs hockey, and the city wanting to put a bow on the festivities with a 25th Stanley Cup, well, naturally Lecavalier would be heading here.

"It's basically like a religion here. Everybody loves the Canadiens, they follow the Canadiens," Lecavalier said. "For someone being born here, to play here, obviously people add a little bit of pressure, but I think a good pressure."

And, one more time: Vinny, are you expecting to get traded?

"I don't know, I don't think so," Lecavalier said. "But in professional sports you can't predict the future. If it happens, it happens. Like I said, I love being in Tampa. The coaching staff is great, players are great, and I really enjoy being there."

That's OK that he doesn't know. He's just going to be asked again tomorrow anyhow.