No one is eliminating Vinny. The superstar center will be with the organization the rest of his career.

The confusion, apparently, is because of a quote used Sunday from vice president of hockey operations, Brian Lawton to wrap up a story about the extrordinary commitment the Lightning made by signing players to one-way contracts of $194.32-million over the length of the deals. The final quote was supposed to bring the reader back to the story-opening debate in which Lawton said the sum is misleading because Lecavalier's new 11-year, $85-million extension represents almost half the amount. And if you take Vinny's contract out of the equation, the money doesn't seem as jaw-dropping.

So when Lawton said at the end, "If you eliminate Vinny ... " (a quote I shortened because Lawton took off in another direction at that point), he was talking about the contract in the context of evaluating how much money Tampa Bay has spent. He was not talking about eliminating him from the team.

Though I thought it was a good way to end the story, by bringing it back to the original debate, apologies to anyone who got the wrong impression.