Agent-turned-exec Lawton hits the ground running

Brian Lawton thought he was prepared for anything.

After 14 years of being a player agent sparring with general managers over dollars and cents, the first overall pick of the 1983 NHL draft by the North Stars gave it all up to pursue his dream of crossing the aisle and becoming an NHL executive.

Over the past few years, Lawton interviewed everywhere -- Anaheim, Vancouver, the New York Islanders, to name a few teams -- and finally got his chance last month when he latched on to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the NHL's worst team last season, as vice president of hockey operations.

But the ensuing three weeks got to be so frenzied, so hectic, so exhausting, it's amazing Lawton's wavy brown mane hasn't frizzled as if he actually was struck by a lightning bolt.

"It's been kind of like the movie 'Gladiator,'," said the 43-year-old Lawton, reached in his office just before midnight earlier this week. "The gates open, and you've got to be ready for anything and make sure you're not killed."

In fact, Lawton has been the one doing the trampling. Since his June 25 hiring by owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie, the NHL's biggest daily headlines typically come out of Florida's Gulf Coast.

Among the dozen or so moves, he traded for Ryan Malone's rights, then signed him to a seven-year, $31.5 million deal; signed Gary Roberts and Radim Vrbata; traded Dan Boyle months after he was signed to a six-year extension with a no-trade clause; signed superstar Vincent Lecavalier to an 11-year, $85 million extension and accepted General Manager Jay Feaster's, uh, resignation.

And between this dizzying first 19 days on the job that caused 20-hour workdays and 2 a.m. walks back to his hotel room from the Lightning's arena, Lawton overhauled the front office with hires of Tom Kurvers and Greg Malone (conveniently, Ryan's dad), hired a new GM and coaches for Norfolk of the American Hockey League, organized a prospect camp in Victoria, British Columbia, completed the Lightning's plans in Prague, Czech Republic (where the team opens the upcoming season) and painted the Lightning's disheveled offices.

"It's been an incredible amount of work, but definitely exciting," said Lawton, an Edina resident who's trying to figure out when he can move his wife and three children to Tampa. "In our private meetings between Len, Oren and myself, it was unanimously agreed that come July 1, there would be a bomb going off, a nuclear bomb for player salaries, and 'we better shop early and often, fellas, or we're going to be left holding the bag in a market that's undersupplied and overdemanded.'

"We had to be aggressive. We finished 30th last year."

First, an agent

After 483 games with six NHL teams, Lawton, who calls himself "a marginal player at best," retired in 1993. He opened up Lawton Sport and Financial, which he sold in 1998 to Octagon Athlete Representation. He was the agent to several top NHLers, including Mike Modano, Mark Parrish, Bret Hedican and Malone.

But he privately wanted to work for a team and was up for a number of jobs.

"But I'd go in for the interview, and everybody kept saying, 'You're a nontraditional candidate, so we're putting you in this category over here,'" Lawton said.

Fittingly, Lawton, who prepared a 50-page "to-do" book, hooked up with Koules and Barrie, two nontraditional owners. They liked Lawton because "he was different than everybody" they interviewed for what was Feaster's still-occupied job.

Koules is a Hollywood producer responsible for the "Saw" movie franchise and the sitcom "Two and a Half Men"; Barrie was an NHL journeyman who struck it rich with a golf resort in Victoria. They are young, brash and would rather wear T-shirts and jeans with holes in them than $1,000 suits.

"I don't think there are a lot of people who could work with Oren and I. We're owner-operators," Barrie said. "We're very involved, and Brian's got the personality and whole style to be a natural fit with us. He's been a 10 out of 10 so far."

So Lawton flew south and got to work even though the GM, Feaster, still was awkwardly employed by the team.

"The reality is I never saw him when I was here," Lawton said. "I called him right away and said, 'Look Jay, I appreciate everything you've done, you're a class act, but let's talk in a few weeks.'"

Getting down to work

Besides Lawton's laundry list of NHL moves, he had to restock the Lightning's farm system. The Lightning has one of the most abysmal draft records in hockey. Since the Lightning struck gold with Lecavalier (first overall) and Brad Richards (64th overall) in 1998, the only Lightning draft pick to have played more than 200 games is Paul Ranger (220 games), selected 183rd in 2002.

"We had nothing. We had no assets. I was just floored by it, quite frankly," Lawton said. "There were the fireworks on the surface that everybody saw in the Malones, Vrbatas, re-signing Vinny, but at the same time, we had to add the [Brandon] Bochenskis, Wyatt Smiths, Andrew Hutchinsons, [Zenon] Konopkas and [Janne] Niskalas because we had no assets in the organization.

"We've done a year's worth of work in the first couple weeks."

As the saying goes, you don't win Stanley Cups in July. But Barrie said: "We've set the table for the players nicely, and now it's up to them. Our goal is to win the division and compete for the Eastern Conference."

Added Lawton: "We're on our way to turning things around here. We're doing everything we can to make sure the players can play excuse-free hockey. And I'm having the time of my life."