Lightning co-owner Oren Koules doesn't mind a little bloodletting in any of his business ventures. (Ken Helle/St. Petersburg Times/Associated Press)

Anyone who has seen one of the movies in the Saw horror franchise knows what can happen when you throw a bunch of strangers together in an unfamiliar room.

We're not saying the carnage was quite that bad in Tampa Bay at the start of the new NHL season. But the faint of heart found it hard to watch the Lightning as they tried to integrate a slew of new players from an off-season overhaul led by new owner, and Saw producer, Oren Koules.

Tampa Bay began 2008-09 with five straight losses, and six in its first seven games. The Lightning looked better in a 3-2 win over Toronto on Tuesday, but seeing as how it's Halloween and all, let's stick to the gory details.

The story starts with Koules. The 47-year-old Hollywood magnate and business partner Len Barrie — a 39-year-old former junior star who spent parts of seven seasons in the NHL — have been on a Jigsaw-like rampage since buying the Lightning last February.

Not shy about a little bloodletting, Koules and Barrie wasted no time remodelling the Lightning in their own image. (Maybe not a bad idea considering the team's 31 wins last season were the fewest in the league.)

The new guys kicked things off back in June by hauling Barry Melrose out of the broadcasting world to replace the fired John Tortorella behind the bench. It's Melrose's first NHL coaching job since 1994-95, when he was the well-coiffed head of the Los Angeles Kings.

Koules and Barrie then hired former player agent Brian Lawton as vice-president of hockey operations. That prompted general manager Jay Feaster — the architect of Tampa Bay's 2004 Stanley Cup championship team — to resign, saying he felt obsolete in the new regime.

Next was the roster overhaul. In came free-agent forwards Ryan Malone, Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts, Vaclav Prospal and Radim Vrbata, and goalie Olaf Kolzig. Plus, the Lightning traded for defenceman Andrej Meszaros and snapped up OHL scoring sensation Steven Stamkos with the No. 1 overall draft pick.

Add those new faces to a potent attack that already included snipers Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis, and it's no surprise that pundits were bullish on a Tampa turnaround. But, as the team found out during its brutal start, it's tough to build a contender overnight.

"We're a skilled team with lots of skilled forwards, but we're not competing hard enough," Melrose complained on Hockey Night in Canada Radio this week. "When we get beat, that's why we get beat."

Slow start for Stamkos

Malone has been the biggest disappointment. The rugged winger parlayed a career-high 27-goal season as Sidney Crosby's sidekick on the Pittsburgh Penguins into a seven-year, $31.5 million US contract with the Lightning. Not bad for a guy who's never exceeded 51 points in four NHL campaigns.

Barry Melrose was entrusted with the Lightning bench despite having been out of coaching for more than a decade. (Doug Benc/Getty Images)No one will accuse the hard-working Pittsburgh native of not giving an honest effort for his paycheque, but Malone didn't click right away in Tampa Bay, managing just one point (a goal) in his first eight games. His minus-3 rating was tied for the worst on the team.

"Ryan wasn't great at the start of the year," Melrose said. "I think it had to do with the injuries he had and the short off-season." (Malone played into the Stanley Cup final last spring with the Penguins.)

"But all I stress with Ryan is I want you to be the guy that played in Pittsburgh last year. I don't want you to be a guy who has to justify his [big] contract. Ryan is a physical player, he sticks up for his teammates, he goes to the net, he wins physical battles. That's when Ryan is an excellent player."

Stamkos, meanwhile, had trouble adjusting to life in the pros. Coming off a 105-point season in 61 games with the Sarnia Sting, the 18-year-old centre went scoreless in his first seven games before registering an assist in the win in Toronto.

"Steven is getting his chances," Melrose said. "He's hit posts, he's made nice plays.

"He's playing better every game. Five-on-five, he's been excellent. Defensively, he's very conscientious."

Like Stamkos, the Lightning's problem at the start of the season was that they couldn't put the puck in the net. Through eight contests, their 1.75 goals per game average was easily the lowest in the NHL. That's new for a franchise that for years was known for its "shoot first, play defence later" approach.

Barrie: the next Howie Meeker?

But this team looks different. Smith and backup Kolzig have finally given the team reliable goaltending (not to mention some positive buzz: the netminders are auctioning off game-worn masks featuring the likeness of Jigsaw — the clown-faced tormentor from the Saw flicks — for charity on the eve of the release of Saw V). And with workhorse Paul Ranger stabilizing the blue-line since his return from a shoulder injury, the Lightning had given up just 2.38 goals a night, good for seventh in the league.

Steven Stamkos struggled to find his scoring touch at the start of the season. (Dave Sandford/Getty Images)"Our goaltending and our defence are fine," Melrose said. "Since Paul Ranger came back, our goals-against is as good as anybody's in the NHL. We've just got to score goals. If we score goals, we're going to win a lot of games because of our goaltending and our defence."

With the power play struggling (Tampa's 10.8 per cent success rate ranked 29th in the league), a bizarre rumour surfaced last week. Hockey writer Al Strachan reported on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada that a Lightning player had told him that, during the team's season-opening two-game series in Prague against the New York Rangers, Barrie visited the dressing room and diagrammed special-teams plays.

The man knows the game — he once scored 85 goals in a season with the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League — but such a move would clearly undermine Melrose's authority, if it happened.

That's why the coach aimed to set the record straight on HNIC Radio.

"It wasn't just chalk talks. [Barrie] comes in with video equipment and overhead projectors when he does his thing, so let's get the story out there properly," Melrose joked. "That's what's really been happening."

Melrose wasn't in such a light-hearted mood when reporters pressed him on the rumour after a game-day skate in Toronto.

"It's a lie," he said. "Canada used to be a country where you couldn't lie. I was brought up in Saskatchewan and if I ever lied my dad would kick my butt. But obviously that's not the case in Ontario because you can say whatever you want on TV and there's no repercussions.

"I guess there's not much journalistic accountability anywhere in Canada."

We'll probably never know for certain what did — or didn't — happen in Prague, but in an earlier interview with HNIC Radio, Koules didn't exactly dismiss the notion that he and Barrie like to bend Melrose's ear.

"We talk a lot every day," said Koules, who played four years in the WHL before enjoying a cup of coffee in the minors. "We're constantly trying to make our team better."

And if the Lightning don't get better? Given the aggressive nature of their new owners, you can bet that there will be blood. Oh yes, there will be blood.