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25 Greatest Scorers in Lightning History: #2

August 23, 2017, 7:10 AM ET [7 Comments]
John Gove
Calgary Flames Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


In honor of the upcoming season, which is the franchise's 25th, I thought it would be fun to use this hockey downtime to countdown the 25 greatest goal scorers in Tampa Bay Lightning history.

In constructing this list, I not only took into account the number of goals a player scored while playing in Tampa, I also considered a number of games they suited up for the Lightning. As this list progresses over the next few weeks, you will notice that some players are ranked higher than others even if their goal total was less. This is because although someone scored slightly fewer goals, they reached those numbers in fewer games.

Due to the Lightning still being a relatively young franchise, a good deal of these players are still active, and some of them still take the ice for the Bolts.

Enjoy!


The List So Far
Number 25: Pavel Kubina
Number 24: Victor Hedman
Number 23: Mikael Andersson
Number 22: Roman Hamrlik
Number 21: Dan Boyle
Number 20: Rob Zamuner
Number 19: Valtteri Filppula
Number 18: Alex Killorn
Number 17: Chris Gratton
Number 16: Teddy Purcell
Number 15: Ruslan Fedotenko
Number 14: Ondrej Palat
Number 13: Dave Andreychuk
Number 12: Alex Selivanov
Number 11: Ryan Malone
Number 10: Tyler Johnson
Number 9: Petr Klima
Number 8: Vinny Prospal
Number 7: Brad Richards
Number 6: Fredrik Modin
Number 5: Brian Bradley
Number 4: Nikita Kucherov
Number 3: Vincent Lecavalier


Number 2: Martin St. Louis

Martin St. Louis's path to becoming an elite player in the National Hockey League was untraditional, to say the least. The former University of Vermont standout went undrafted and was shown very little interest around the league. The Ottawa Senator, the only team to offer St. Louis a tryout, released him prior to the 1997-98 season leading to him signing with Cleveland Lumberjacks of the International Hockey League. His strong play got the attention of the Calgary Flames who eventually signed him to a contract in February of 1998.

St. Louis got his first taste of NHL action in the 1998-99 season, playing 13 games for the Flames. He would also lace his skates up for Calgary the following season but never accomplished enough to prove he was worth keeping around. When St. Louis did not get selected in the 2000 NHL Expansion Draft, the Flames bought out his contract making him a free agent.

We all know the next chapter of St. Louis's story very well. He signed with Tampa Bay and arguably became the greatest player in Lightning history. His first two seasons with the Bolts were not incredibly special, in terms of scoring. However, he picked it up 2002-03 scoring 33 goals in 82 games. St. Louis would wind up scoring over 30 goals in four straight years, notching his career-high of 43 in 2006-07.

When his time with the Lightning finally came to an end, St. Louis had played in 972 games and scored 365 goals. He was four short of 100 power play goals with Tampa Bay, recording 96. In addition, he always stepped up in the clutch, scoring 64 game winning goals.

This past season, the Tampa Bay Lightning honored St. Louis by making him the first player to have his number retired by the franchise.
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