After a couple of years of putting together terrible teams on the ice and having the most embarrassing owners in the league, there is so much optimism for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season. It’s rare to see a franchise go through such a positive transformation from top to bottom, but it happened and many believe that the Lightning are going to reap the rewards of that immediately.
It all started at the very top with Jeff Vinnik becoming the new owner of this team replacing the comedy duo of Oren Koules and Len Barrie. Vinnik was insistent on creating a ladder structure of management, which would then create the kind of organization that this franchise was sorely lacking. Vinnik eventually got his general manager with the addition of Steve Yzerman, who then hired Guy Boucher as his new head coach.
All of a sudden, the franchise had some credibility and legitimacy up top, so it made it easier to trade and bring in some name free agents to improve the on-ice product. Among the new faces include Simon Gagne (via trade with Philadelphia), Pavel Kubina (via free agency: Atlanta), Dominic Moore (via free agency: Montreal) and Dan Ellis (via free agency: Nashville).
However, despite all the changes, they need their top three players to continue to put points on the board. It all starts with Steven Stamkos and his 51 goals and 97 points from a year ago. After a sub-par rookie campaign, Stamkos quickly lived up to the hype with an incredible sophomore campaign. What can he do for his third NHL season?
On the other side of the age spectrum, Martin St. Louis continues to steal from the fountain of youth and put up big time numbers when people are just waiting for him to hit the wall. After a couple consecutive years of dropping numbers, he rebounded last season to put up 94 points. The third guy may be hitting the wall early though as Vincent Lecavalier has had seasons with 67 and 70 points respectively after a 92 point effort in 2007-2008.
Defensively, the Lightning have a good amount of talent and a nice mix of young and experienced. Victor Hedman is the future of this defence corps, but for now, he’s going to be joined at the hip by his countryman Matthias Ohlund and new addition Pavel Kubina.
In goal, Dan Ellis will battle Mike Smith for the number one spot, but everyone expects Ellis to win the spot. Having signed for only 1.5 million this season, Ellis could prove to be one of the best values in the NHL this year.
Two players to watch out in camp are Simon Gagne and Teddy Purcell. When healthy, Gagne can still be very productive, but having missed an average of 28 games a season over the last three years, will he be durable enough to give this team consistent scoring? Big things have always been expected of Purcell since entering the league with the Kings a couple of years ago. With the Lightning expected to give him a shot at Top 6 minutes, can he finally breakout with the Lightning?