June 15th, 2013 at 1:29 PM
By Kyle Alexander AbneyDespite his best effort not to, Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis won his third career Lady Byng Memorial Trophy this year, it was announced today.
The Lady Byng is awarded annually to the "player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability".
In layman's terms, the award is usually handed out to the player who manages to score the most points while keeping his penalty minutes down — usually close to single digits in an 82-game season.
For St. Louis, 14 penalty minutes in only 48 games is something of an aberration, and it was a bit surprising that the Professional Hockey Writers Assocation handed him the award given how many penalties he did take this year.
He was on a pace for a rather significant amount of penalty minutes this year, especially considering the two prior years when St. Louis won the Lady Byng — 2010-2011 and 2009-2010.
Read more... Join the Conversation... June 11th, 2013 at 6:22 PM
By Kyle Alexander Abney2013 was an up and down season in Tampa Bay, mostly down, and for the second straight year the Tampa Bay Lightning finished the year on the outside looking in.
This year saw a lockout-shortened (48-game) season, four different goal tenders start games for Tampa Bay, a once-likely Calder Trophy nominee and fan favorite traded away, a head coaching change, and much more. To call 2013 a tumultuous season for the Bolts is actually a gross understatement.
As the Stanley Cup Finals are primed to begin between the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, I begin a 28-part series that will be part of the focal point of Lightning 101 this offseason alongside coverage of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft and free agency — a "year in review" series evaluating and analyzing the performance of each player that dressed for at least 10 games for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season — a list that includes 25 skaters and 3 goalies — as well as projecting if and how they fit in for the 2013-2014 season.
Read more... Join the Conversation... June 10th, 2013 at 12:52 PM
By Kyle Alexander AbneyWhen the lottery balls were drawn, a lot of hockey fans in Denver got excited — and for good reason.
The Colorado Avalanche won the 2013 NHL Entry Draft Lottery this year, moving up from the 2nd overall position and displacing the Florida Panthers, who finished with the worst record in the NHL this year.
As a result, the Tampa Bay Lightning now hold a much-coveted top three pick in this summer's NHL Entry Draft (3rd overall), and the ability to select whichever of the three so-called "big three" remain after the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers make their picks at 1st and 2nd overall respectively.
A trio of prospects playing their junior hockey in the CHL have made the biggest splash over the course of the past year, pushing themselves to the top of many draft ranking boards.
While the exact order shuffles around a bit based on subtle differences, the unquestioned "big three" consists of the QMJHL's Halifax Mooseheads teammates Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin as the top forwards and defenseman Seth Jones of the WHL's Portland Winterhawks. Each ranker from the above link has those three as the top players off the board. Ignoring obvious North American bias, these three players are the presumed best players available in the draft, with many considering them an elite tier separate and not equal to the rest of their draft class.
Read more... Join the Conversation... May 24th, 2013 at 12:44 PM
By Kyle Alexander AbneyPer Damian Cristodero of the Lightning Times:
After General Manager let head coach Guy Boucher go mid-season, it was a bit puzzling to see most of the assistants — hand picked by Boucher to be a part of his staff — all stay on.
It's no surprise that at least one of them stayed as essentially a lame duck assistant coach, to maintain some semblance of stability during the ongoing transition to the Jon Cooper era.
The assistant coaching search begins anew, with Guy Boucher, Wayne Fleming and Dan Lacroix all no longer members of the coaching staff that took the Bolts to the Eastern Conference Finals just two years ago.
Read more... Join the Conversation... May 20th, 2013 at 12:34 PM
By Kyle Alexander AbneyTeam USA beat host country Finland for the second time in the 2013 IIHF World Championships, this time 3-2 in a shootout to claim the bronze medal, the first medal for Team USA in this tournament since 2004.
Nate Thompson and Matt Carle were quiet, but effective in this one as coach Joe Sacco continued to use both effectively in a defensive, shut-down role.
The other member of the Tampa Bay Lightning on the roster — goaltender Ben Bishop — sat on the bench again as 19-year old goaltender John Gibson started his fourth straight game for Team USA after Bishop took a 5-3 loss to Russia during the preliminary round.
Bucking a trend of slow starts on the big ice, the Americans had probably their best start in this tournament. The top line of Paul Stastny, Craig Smith and David Moss jumped on Finland early, getting the puck in deep and working it to Smith in front who buried his fourth of the tournament (all against Finland) to give USA the lead barely a minute into the game.
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