Random Trade #14: Let’s Hear it for The Herb

Feb 2, 2023 - 5:00 PM

Sometimes, I get a wild idea in my head and then I run with it. This time, I wanted to pick some random trades out of Lightning history and write about them, no matter if they were a big trade or a nothing trade. According to ProSportsTransactions.com, the Tampa Bay Lightning have made 306 trades during the course of franchise history. I used the Google Random Number Picker with a minimum of 1 and maximum of 306 and hit Generate. For this entry, it came up with 14.

The Trade

The 14th trade in Lightning history came on February 12th 1993. The Lightning acquired Herb Raglan from the Quebec Nordiques in exchange for Michel Mongeau, Martin Simard, and Steve Tuttle.

The Pieces

Herb Raglan

Herb Raglan came to the Lightning as a big left winger that was originally a 2nd round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 1985. He made it to the NHL pretty quickly with the Blues and racked up a lot of penalty minutes. He eventually ended up with the Quebec Nordiques for parts of three seasons before coming to the Lightning.

He was only played in two games for the Lightning when he was called up due to an injury to Rob DiMaio and didn’t record a point. Somehow he didn’t get into a fight and only managed two PIMs. His Lightning debut came against the Toronto Maple Leafs, a 4-1 loss for the Bolts. The top scorer for the Leafs on that night? Old friend Dave Andreychuk who had a power play goal and two assists.

He spent the rest of the season in the IHL with the Atlanta Knights playing in 24 games and picking up four goals, 14 points, and 139 PIMs. He added another three goals and six points in nine playoff games to go with 32 PIMs. Raglan left the Lightning as a free agent for the Ottawa Senators, playing in 29 games with them with no goals and no points and 52 PIMs in 29 games in the 1993-94 season. Those were the last NHL games he played.

Michel Mongeau

Mongeau had played four games with the Lightning in 1992-93 with one goal and two points, but spent most of the year in the IHL with the Milwaukee Admirals before being traded to the Nordiques to play for their AHL team. Mongeau was a small center. While he put up HUGE offensive numbers in the minor leagues, he couldn’t stick in the NHL and those four games with the Lightning were his last in the NHL. He played 54 games in the NHL in his career with 22 points. Over 686 games in the IHL, he put up 311 goals and 837 points, plus another 16 goals and 45 points in 29 games in the AHL. Definitely a case of a player that was born at the wrong time when hockey was not accepting of smaller, offensively skilled forwards.

Your random bit of trivia - Michel Mongeau was the first forward taken by the Lightning in the 1992 expansion draft. Their first nine picks were either goaltenders or defensemen.

Martin Simard

Like Raglan, Simard was a big, tough winger with a lot of PIMs on his resume. He was undrafted, but after spending most of four seasons in the IHL, made his NHL debut with the Calgary Flames in 1990-91. He came to the Lightning during the 1992-93 season, playing seven games in the NHL with the rest of his season spent in the IHL and AHL. He never made it back to the NHL spending the next five season in the AHL and IHL.

Steve Tuttle

Tuttle was originally a 6th round pick of the St. Louis Blues in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft. He went to the University of Wisconsin for four seasons where he won two NCAA Championships. After his college career, he jumped to the NHL with the Blues recording 28 goals and 56 points in 144 games over parts of three seasons. He never made it back to the NHL after the 1990-91 season and spent the rest of his year in the IHL, other than the last bit of the 1992-93 season in the AHL with the Nordique’s minor league affiliate.

The Deal

There was a time that general manager Phil Esposito thought Mongeau might develop into a top center for the Lightning, but decided to move on when the slight center couldn’t transfer his scoring to the NHL level.

“I loved him. In the minors, he’s the best player there is. But he just can’t seem to get over the hump. He had a terrible training camp, and then when we brought him up here, he didn’t do anything.” ^

I couldn’t find a picture of any of the four players in a Lightning uniform in the image database, so you get Thunderbug instead.

^”Lightning pull trigger on minor deal” by Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune February 13th, 1993, retrieved via Newspapers.com 2/2/23