The Future is Bright in Tampa Bay by Jared McCabe

This past May in the Eastern Conference Finals the Lighting took the soon to be Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins to an exciting Game 7. It was the chance for the Lighting to make it to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals in their history, but in the end they didn’t get the job done and they lost 2-1. In Game 1 the Lighting lost their backbone of their defense in losing goaltender Ben Bishop to a lower body injury and he was never able to return. So Jon Cooper had to turn to its 21yr old back up goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. He played great, but he didn’t have the impact Ben Bishop did in the regular season and in the early rounds of the playoffs. When you thought it couldn’t get any worse they didn’t have Steven Stamkos (the soon to be FA) because after the all-star game he had been out with blood clots, so they couldn’t have the “Triplet Line” be amazing like it was from the previous year. But before the puck drop in Pittsburgh for Game 7, head coach Jon Cooper announced that Steven Stamkos was active and ready to go but in the game he wasn’t himself and they ended up losing a tough one 2-1 to Pittsburgh. After the game all the reporters were around Stamkos’ locker asking him if this was his last game in a Tampa uniform and he said “ I certainly hope to be back. We obviously have unfinished business here.” So the lighting went home and the free agency started early.

Lighting general manager Steve Yzerman knew that he had to make the big move and resign Steven Stamkos. Every insider had him linked to his hometown team Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, and they all thought it was a long shot that he would return to the Lighting. And he did, on Wednesday June 29th the Lighting announced that they had resigned him to an 8yr/68M deal. But Yzerman wasn’t done, the next day after he resigned Stamkos he resigned their other star player in defender Victor Hedman to an 8yr/63M deal. This ensured that the two faces of the franchise were there for years to come. Again, Yzerman wasn’t done and signed forward Alex Killorn to a 7yr/4.45M annually per year. He’s still looking to resign rising star in Nikita Kucherov who had 11 goals in the playoffs.

By resigning all these young great players, Steve Yzerman is making sure that this young core can stay for years to come and ensures that the Lighting are the best team in Tampa. All the players know that they have unfinished business to do and that they are on brick of a Stanley Cup win. The future is bright in Tampa and its only going to get better.

Jared McCabe