When I first heard about Tampa Bay’s possible interest in Andrej Meszaros, I did scratch my head over it. But, as proven these days, any time a non-Hockey Buzz rumor pops up involving the Lightning, I have to think its true until proved false. This one, as many others in the past few months, did indeed turn out to be true.

My logic here was thinking that Tampa Bay didn’t have experience as it was on defense, so why would they bring in a 22-year-old, who had taken a step back as more responsibility was placed on him in Ottawa the past two years? But then I thought, well, it might be a good opportunity to shed some of the team’s excess forwards while bringing in another solid, young de into the fold.

Now, the day started out talking about offer sheets and discussions with Pittsburgh about reacquiring the Lightning’s third-round pick in order to have the necessary assets to make an offer sheet to Meszaros. But Ottawa is a team in need of the now, not three years from now, so rather than look at the draft pick compensation from not matching an offer sheet, the Senators opted for players. Filip Kuba apparently expressed to Murray he was looking for a change of scenery, and really, he wasn’t a Melrose kind-of-player, there’s a lot of size and abilities there but he just leaves you wanting more. He’s a great guy, loves his fast cars, but he may not like the Ottawa media very much.

It hurt losing Alex Picard, who showed in his brief time last year that he has some solid upside both offensively and using the body. And Picard’s contract is very friendly at under $1 million per year for the next two years. But, you have to give up something to get something, and losing the extra first round pick, well, that’s still to be judged down the road depending on whom the Senators select with the pick and whether or not Meszaros pans out as projected.

Now, in Meszaros the Lightning have acquired a solid two-way de who can score double-digits in goals, finished in triple figures in hits and is a good shot blocker. He’s a solid puck-mover and can work on the power play as well as the penalty kill.

But, here is the issue that I have - Meszaros is now the most experienced de with 242 games of regular season experience. Paul Ranger is No. 2 on that list at 220 games of experience.

Here is the team’s projected Top 8 with NHL games of experience:

Andrej Meszaros - 242
Paul Ranger - 220
Shane O’Brien - 157
Matt Carle - 151
Andrew Hutchinson - 95
Mike Lundin - 81
Matt Smaby - 14
Janne Niskala - 0
Ty Wishart - 0

Does this make you nervous? There’s a lot of talent there. We know what Paul Ranger is capable of and one would have to think that O’Brien will be better in a more comfortable and fitting role. Matt Carle has a ton of potential, provided he can get past the sophomore slump he went through last year. Lundin was steady, if not spectacular, last year in his rookie season. Meszaros is as established as you can be for a three-year player who is still just 22. Wishart is a very talented former first round pick, Smaby is still progress well while Niskala is an unknown at this point.

Is that enough to instill confidence in the defensive core?

Lightning de facto general manager Brian Lawton told me tonight that the team has confidence in its young players, they just need an opportunity to play. But he has to say that publicly. He did also say that there were still possibilities to help improve the team and implied there were more conversations going on today than just Meszaros and discussions with Pittsburgh.

Now, there is still more than two weeks before training camp, which means there is plenty of time to still discuss things with other teams - Nashville, maybe?.

But I ask you, what is your confidence level in the defense as we see it right now? Where should the team look for some veteran experience at defense?