Tanner Richard experiences first NHL game with Lightning, again

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 22, 2016

TAMPA, Fla. – Tanner Richard stepped on to the ice at Amalie Arena just before faceoff on Dec. 20 to take his place along the blue line. As Sonya Bryson began to belt out the National Anthem, Richard was overcome with the emotions of a 20-year journey.

For the second time, the 24-year-old experienced the first NHL game of his life inside Amalie Arena.

“Just at that moment on the blue line there, where you are quiet and just listening, my head was wandering around, just looking around, that’s when I got lost,” Richard said. “My mind started racing on just a bunch of reflections, just pictures and images of hockey moments in my life that led up to that. So I sort of lost it in that moment right there.”

Richard called it a “surreal” moment, and in some ways, it brought his hockey life full circle.

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Richard’s father was a professional player in Switzerland in the early 2000’s and shared the same agent as former Tampa Bay Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk. When Richard’s family was in Florida in April, 2004, for vacation after the hockey season was completed in Switzerland, they were set up with tickets to a Lightning playoff game.

It was Game 5 of the opening round series against the New York Islanders, the first NHL game Richard ever saw live.

“The atmosphere was just unbelievable,” Richard said. “All the lightning bolts running it and all those clappy things (Thundersticks).”

He remembers the overtime goal scored by Marty St. Louis that clinched the series and sent the Lightning in to the second round.

“He fired a slap shot from probably around the top of the circle that went bar down,” Richard said. “I remember the sound of the post, actually, and it was unbelievable. That moment, ever since then, kind of captured me with the Lightning.”

Though he grew up a fan of the Red Wings, Richard fell in love with the Lightning that night and immediately took to playing as the Lightning when it came to firing up the video game system.

While getting the chance to be drafted by the Lightning in the third round of the 2012 draft was a special moment, making his NHL debut in Tampa while facing the Detroit Red Wings and taking the opening faceoff is a made-for-television moment.

The moment was made even more special considering Richard was called up by the Lightning last season but never played. Then on the weekend, Richard was told to get to Edmonton on Dec. 17 to make his NHL debut.

“I was told Friday night after our game in Bridgeport, right around 12:30 at night I got a call from Mr. Yzerman and had a cab out at five in the morning,” Richard said. “So those four-and-a-half hours I didn’t sleep for one second, I tried to but for some reason the pillows were not as fluffy, wasn’t as comfortable on the right side, so I switch to the left side and my mind was just racing, so I didn’t get much sleep.”

A delay getting out of New York, however, prevented Richard from making his connecting flight in Minnesota, so he headed back to the Crunch to play for Syracuse on Sunday.

“I was pretty disappointed after I missed that connection and had to turn around on Saturday,” Richard said. “I was in pretty good slump. You work your whole life toward something and you get told and you get all fired up and excited to play, then it gets taken away from you.

“But that’s life, things are going to happen and you are going to face adversity. So I was told to go back, have a good game on Sunday. And it probably would have been a little harder if I had a day off just because then my mind would have still been wrapped around that. But I was with Syracuse and we had a game on Sunday so that took a lot of my focus off, and it was still in my mind a little bit, but I just did the best I could to focus on the game.”

Richard finished the game with 12:23 of ice time on 16 shifts, registered one shot on goal, two hits, one blocked shot, one takeaway and won 3-of-11 faceoffs in his NHL debut.

Just like his first experience with a Lightning game inside Amalie Arena, Richard hopes he’s hooked with the team for the long haul.

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