Top 10 stories from 2017 for Tampa Bay Lightning

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 31, 2017

TAMPA – Quite the up and down year for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2017.

From long losing streaks to extended winning streaks, welcoming new faces and familiar faces returning to old places, the Lightning found themselves on both sides of the spectrum throughout the calendar year.

As the team and franchise head in to what looks like a promising 2018, a look back at the Top 10 stories surrounding the Lightning in 2017.

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10 – Lightning draft son of former NHLer

At the 2017 NHL Draft, the Lightning used the 14th overall pick to select 6-foot-4 defenseman Callan Foote, the son of former NHL defenseman Adam Foote, a long time rival of Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman during the peak days of the heated rivalry between Colorado (Foote) and Detroit.

Foote plays for Kelowna in the Western Hockey League and was named to Team Canada for the 2018 World Junior Championships as one of four Lightning prospects on the team.

9 – Syracuse reaches Calder Cup Final

For the second time since the Lightning entered in to an affiliation agreement with the Syracuse Crunch, Tampa Bay’s farm team advance to the Calder Cup Final in the American Hockey League. And for the second time, it was against the Grand Rapids Griffins, the top affiliate for the Detroit Red Wings. And for the second time, the fell in six games to Grand Rapids.

Yanni Gourde and Cory Conacher led the way on offense with 17 and 18 points, respectively, for Syracuse in the postseason.

8 – Lightning sign a pair of key veterans in free agency

Tampa Bay was expected to maintain a bit of a low profile as the free agency period opened on July 1. With limited salary camp space, the Lightning did not have the flexibility to dip too deep in to the free agency pool. But Yzerman and Co. maximized the opportunity by bringing in veterans Dan Girardi and Chris Kunitz.

Yzerman wanted to bring in experience heading in to the 2017-18 season and added more than 1,700 games of combined regular season experience and nearly 300 games of playoff experience by bringing in the pair of players. Both have played in a Stanley Cup Final, with Kunitz the only active player in the league with four Stanley Cup titles.

7 – Lightning miss playoffs for first time in four years

After back-to-back seasons in which the Lightning reached the Stanley Cup Final and the Eastern Conference finals, a return trip to the postseason seemed almost a given for Tampa Bay heading in to the 2016-17 season.

But after Steven Stamkos went down with a knee injury on Nov. 15, the season start to unravel and extended losing streaks in December and January sank the Lightning to the bottom of the conference. A late-season charge pulled Tampa Bay back in to contention to sneak at the end, but the Lightning would end up falling one point short of returning to the postseason for a fourth consecutive season.

6 – Nikita Kucherov emerges as an elite player

Right wing Nikita Kucherov nearly single-handedly carried Tampa Bay in to the postseason last year and put forth an MVP-caliber campaign hitting the 40-goal mark for the first time in his career. He picked up right where he left off this season scoring goals in seven consecutive games to start the season while recording points in the first 11 games to start the season.

For the calendar year 2017, no player in the league had more goals or points than Kucherov, who finished 2017 with 52 goals and 106 points, four more than Connor McDavid.

5 – Steven Stamkos returns in strong form

After a third traumatic injury that cost Stamkos most of his season after undergoing knee surgery there were many questions as to whether or not Stamkos was going to be able get back to being the same type of player that won two Rocket Richard Trophies earlier in his career. After suffering a broken leg in 2013 that cost him a spot on the Canadian Olympic roster in 2014 and then a blood clot that kept him out of all but one game in the 2016 postseason run to the Eastern Conference finals, many wondered if Stamkos was now just an injury-prone former All-Star.

But the Lightning captain has shown no rust from the extended time off, picking up right where he left off before his injury last year, picking up points in 11 consecutive games to start the season. Stamkos led the league in power play goals and points heading in to the 2018 portion of the calendar and was fourth in scoring.

4 – Tampa lands the 2018 All-Star Game

For the second time in 18 years, the league will descend upon the Tampa Bay area to host the signature showcase event at Amalie Arena on Jan. 27-28 with the All-Star Game.

The new format, introduced two seasons ago, brings a 3-on-3 tournament format between the four divisions. Fans vote for the captains of each squad, and Steven Stamkos will be the Atlantic Division captain while the rest of the squad will be selected by the league with a total of six forwards and three defensemen per team plus two goaltenders. The winning team will receive a monetary prize.

Tampa last hosted the All-Star game in 1999 when the game was the North America vs. The World format. Wendell Clark was the Lightning representative while it ended up being the last All-Star game for Wayne Gretzky, who retired at the end of the season.

3 – Ben Bishop traded, Vasilevskiy takes over

Entering the 2016-17 season the lame duck status of goaltender Ben Bishop hovered over the Lightning. The two-time Vezina Trophy finalist was nearly traded to Calgary at the draft before the deal fell through after the Flamers were unable to come to an agreement on a contract extension. So Bishop entered the final year of his contract knowing it was probably going to be his final season in a Lighting uniform, knowing Andrei Vasilevskiy was going to be the eventual No. 1 for the team. During an up-and-down final season where Bishop didn’t seem to be as sharp as his previous three full seasons, he alternated starts with Vasilevskiy for most of the season, the Lightning finally pulled the trigger on a deal that ended Bishop’s tenure in Tampa Bay, a sending him to Los Angeles in February.

The move handed over the reigns to Vasilevskiy, who is turning in to one of the top goaltenders in the league and put himself in the Vezina conversation this season. Since Bishop was traded, Vasilevskiy posted a record of 36-9-3, putting up the most victories in the league in that time entering New Year’s Eve. The 22-year-old has proven exactly why the move to trade Bishop was the right decision and when Vasilevskiy was the 19th overall selection in the 2012 draft. Vasilevskiy entered the final game of 2017 leading the league in victories with 24 to go with a 2.09 goals against average and .934 save percentage.

2. Dave Andreychuk elected to Hall of Fame

Former Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk, who helped lead the 2004 team to a Stanley Cup title, received the call from the Hall in June after he was elected to join the Hall of Fame. The all-time leader in power play goal, a record that still stands more than a decade after he retired, often said he wasn’t giving the thought of being selected to the Hall of Fame any second thoughts. In fact, on the day the selections were announced, Andreychuk was in the car on the way to the airport to pick up his wife when he received the call and had to pull off the side of the road. He was the final member of a group of players to score 600-or-more career goals to be selected for enshrinement.

Andreychuk is the first player who played a prominent amount of their career with Tampa Bay to be elected to the Hall of Fame, having spent three full seasons in a Lightning uniform.

1. Jonathan Drouin traded for Mikhail Sergachev

A little over two years after Jonathan Drouin requested a trade out of the Lightning organization, he was finally granted his request, albeit on Steve Yzerman’s terms. On June 15, Yzerman finally pulled off a deal to send Drouin to Montreal in exchange for former ninth overall pick in 2016, defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. The move was one of the biggest off-season trades in the league as Tampa Bay sent the former third overall pick who was coming off his first career 20-goal season in his first full season as a regular in the NHL. Drouin headed to his home province to be the French-Canadian star the Canadiens have been seeking for years. In return, Tampa Bay received a highly-regarded
defenseman coming off a Memorial Cup championship season with Windsor.

The Lightning were in need of a young defensive prospect and had an excess of top-end talent among the forwards and the deal was done, with some conditional draft picks involved. Sergachev has come in and shattered expectations in his first year with the Lightning, which was brought to the forefront when the two players went head-to-head for the first time in late December.
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