Tampa Bay Lightning 2013-14 Season Primer

• Team Outlook from McKeen’s Hockey Guide:

  For the second straight campaign, the Tampa Bay Lightning fell short of the playoffs and once again a combination of defense and goaltending problems was the reason. Lightning GM Steve Yzerman made an effort to find the team’s goaltender of the future in 2012 by trading for Anders Lindback, and then hedged his bets during the failing 2013 campaign by also acquiring Ben Bishop.Both netminders have the potential to become solid starting goaltenders and Bishop already has enjoyed a measure of sustained success at the NHL level, even if the sample size is still relatively small. All the same, goaltending remains an area of concern.

  That has to be a source of frustration in Tampa Bay because it’s contrasted so heavily by their offense. Steven Stamkos is one of the best players in the game today and Martin St. Louis hasn’t started acting his age yet. Even after the team used a compliance buyout on Vincent Lecavalier for cap purposes, the team should have scoring depth to back up their big two. It helps that sophomore Alex Killorn and rookie Jonathan Drouin both seem poised to take big steps forward.

  In fact, Valtteri Filppula might be a bigger X-factor than Drouin and Killorn going into the 2013-14 campaign. Yzerman signed his old teammate to a five-year, $25 million campaign despite the fact he’s coming off a rough season and has only recorded more than 40 points once. If Yzerman’s trust in Filppula proves to be founded, then he could be the difference between the team squeaking into the playoffs and missing it entirely. If the Lightning miss the postseason for the third consecutive year and Filppula struggles, then it’s a move that will be at the forefront of any criticisms directed towards Yzerman – and especially if Lecavalier sparkles for the Flyers.

• Team Fantasy Outlook from Dobber Hockey’s 2013-14 Fantasy Guide – Over a 150 pages of fantasy goodness:

  Dobber’s lowdown on: Victor Hedman – The second overall pick in 2009 is improving steadily as a fantasy player. Not fast enough for fantasy owners, but unlike another high pick – Colorado’s Erik Johnson – there is progress here. His points-pergame average has improved in baby steps – 0.27, 0.33, 0.38 and 0.45. He didn’t see a ton of PP time last season, but he saw more as the season wore on. He lost PP time because the team was using Salo. That won’t continue. So Hedman will finally get the PP time that he deserves and since this team is a better offensive team than it was last year, that Hedman breakout we’ve been waiting for could be here.

  TB has a crop of promising young offensive players in the system and last year it seemed as though each one they brought up for a cup of coffee performed extremely well and ended up enjoying an extended stay. Killorn became a part of the full-time roster, while Palat had four points in 14 games, Johnson had six in 14 and Panik had nine in 25. It made Cory Conacher expendable, and so GM Steve Yzerman took advantage of that and turned Conacher into Bishop at the deadline. They don’t get Bishop if these quality prospects had performed poorly.

  The 38-year-old St. Louis has 112 points in his last 98 games. At the same age, Wayne Gretzky had 152 points in 152 games. I was just curious how he compared to the Great One so I looked it up. Different era, teammates, yadda yadda yadda. The point is – St. Louis is still really really good.

  Purcell had 15 points in his last 27 games despite playing a lot with Stamkos down the stretch. With Drouin now on the scene, I think Purcell will see far less time with Stamkos and his numbers could take a hit.

  Malone played most of his shifts, when healthy, with Stamkos and St. Louis. He was also fifth among Tampa forwards in PP time per game. Injuries are a big reason why he had just eight points in 24 games, but even so – given the latter information he should have done much better.

Follow link for more info and stats

Additions: F Valtteri Filppula, D Drew Olson, F Reto Suri, D Andrej Sustr, F Geoff Walker.

Subtractions: G Mathieu Garon, F Johan Harju, F Alex Hutchings, F Jean-Francois Jacques, F Martins Karsums, F Vincent Lecavalier, D Brendan Mikkelson, G Pat Nagle, D Evan Oberg, F Benoit Pouliot, D Mathieu Roy, F J.T. Wyman.

Promotion candidates: RW Brett Connolly, RW Nikita Kucherov, LW Jonathan Drouin, D Andrej Sustr.

Cap Number: $63,784,441
Bonuses: $728,333
Cap Space: $515,559

Source: CapGeek

Forwards
Ryan Malone – Steven Stamkos – Martin St. Louis
Alex Killorn – Valtteri Filppula – Teddy Purcell
Ondrej Palat – Tyler Johnson – Richard Panik
Tom Pyatt – Nate Thompson – B.J. Crombeen
Dana Tyrell – Vladislav Namestnikov – Brett Connolly

Defensemen
Victor Hedman – Sami Salo
Matthew Carle – Radko Gudas
Mark Barberio – Eric Brewer
Keith Aulie – Andrej Sustr

Goalies
Ben Bishop
Anders Lindback

2013 Tampa Bay Lightning Draft Results 

Tampa Bay Lightning Top Prospects

2012-13 Tampa Bay Lightning Player Stats

Some info, stats and video taken from NHL.com’s 30-in-30 series.