New Lightning owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie do realize this is not a fantasy league, right? That they bought a real team and they have to pay real money for real players who really will wear a Lightning uniform? Seems as if someone is available then the owners are interested. I halfway expect them to sign Gordie Howe, Gump Worsley and at least three Sutter brothers today. Not to throw cold water on this whole thing, but you just hope for two things:

1.  They have a long-term plan, knowing that all the money they're committing now won't be available to sign possibly even better players next summer when the free-agent pool could be deeper.

2. They aren't overpaying for anybody.

That brings us to Ryan Malone, the biggest splash the Lightning has made, signing the former Penguins forward to a seven-year, $31.5-million contract. Don't get me wrong. What's not to like about Malone? He is a hard worker with a nose for the net, a gritty player who, by all accounts, puts the team ahead of himself and is a standup guy on and off the ice. A guy like that should always be welcome on any team.

No, what makes me a tad anxious is he has put up decent -- not great mind you, but decent -- scoring totals while playing most of his career with, perhaps, the best player in the game in Sidney Crosby and, at times, Evgeni Malkin, probably one of the top five players in the game.

You can't help but wonder how much those two superstars had to do with Malone's numbers. Take last season, Malone scored 27 goals. Crosby and/or Malkin assisted on 15 of them.  Malone scored only seven goals that didn't include an assist from Crosby, Malkin or star defenseman Sergei Gonchar. Meantime, Malone had 24 assists and 14 of those scoring plays included goals and/or assists from Crosby and/or Malkin. A lot of those were second assists. Add it all up and 29 of Malone's 51 points were either set up or scored by Crosby or Malkin.

This isn't to dump on Malone. If he plays with, say, Vinny Lecavalier or Steve Stamkos and sees plenty of time on the power play, he could put up his usual 25 or so goals. You just hope that, in the end, the Lightning didn't overspend. And that Malone isn't a product of having played with the right players at the right time.