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25 Greatest Scorers in Lightning History: #5

August 18, 2017, 1:37 PM ET [4 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

Brian Bradley, the first star player of the Tampa Bay Lightning, was originally drafted by the Calgary Flames in the third round of the 1983 NHL Entry Draft. He made his NHL debut with the Flames during the 1985-86 season, playing in only five games. Bradley would play 40 games for Calgary the following season, scoring the first ten goals of his NHL Career.

Bradley was then traded to the Vancouver Canucks where he would play the four years before being traded again, this time to the Toronto Maple Leafs. While with Vancouver, he began to establish himself a little bit more as an NHL player but still never reached 20 goals in a single season. Unfortunately, Bradley also struggled to accomplish much during his time in Toronto.

In 1992, Brian Bradley was selected by the Lightning in the expansion draft. Unknown to him and Tampa Bay, he would turn into the first star of the new franchise. In his first season with the Bolts, Bradley would turn heads, scoring 42 goals and adding 44 assists. He would never come close to that mark again in his career but posted 24 in 1993-94 and 23 goals in 1995-96.

When he finally decided to call it quits in December of 1999, Bradley had played 328 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning. In that time he managed to score 111 goals, 37 of them on the power play. Although his playing time was cut short due to struggles with injuries, Brian Bradley made quite an impact on the new hockey franchise in Tampa Bay.
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