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
Vaclav "Vinny" Prospal was originally selected 71st overall in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers. He would not see any action in the National Hockey League until the 1996-97 season where he played 18 games for Philadelphia and scored five goals.
Prospal first joined the Tampa Bay Lightning 2001-02 season but would have four different stints with the Bolts. In 468 games with Tampa, Prospal recorded 127 goals, 44 on the power play and 16 game winners. His best season with the Lightning was also his shortest as he scored 29 goals in 2007-08 with the team before being traded back to the Flyers.
Overall, Prospal played in 1108 NHL games and scored 255 goals. His career assist number exact doubled his goal number with 510.