Not sure if anybody caught this little nugget from Tuesday when Lightning co-owner Oren Koules was interviewed on the Fan-590 in Toronto - one of the hosts is former prospective Lightning owner Doug MacLean, by the way - when Koules was asked about new head coach Barry Melrose and what he brings to the team:

I’m going to paraphrase a bit here, but essentially Koules said: “Look, there were two parties in Tampa Bay, obviously in 2004 when they won the Stanley Cup and the other was by the players behind closed doors when we fired Torts.’’

Then there was some other comment about Koules is going to give his cowboy hat to Tortorella. You can check it out here.

Didn’t see that coming at all. When Tortorella called Koules and fellow co-owner Len Barrie a “couple of cowboys’’ on an Ottawa radio station last month, Koules declined to fire back. Guess he was just biding his time.