As shocking as it is to believe, the Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t make the playoffs. They had the Art Ross Trophy winner in Martin St. Louis and one of the league’s most potent goal scorers in Steven Stamkos and they still were sitting on the sidelines. Read on to find out why.
Team Name: Tampa Bay Lightning
Record: 18-26-4, 4th in Southeast, No Playoffs
Player of the Season: Stamkos and St. Louis both get this award. St. Louis won the scoring title with 60 points (17G, 43A) and 20 of them came on the power play while Stamkos was near the top of the goal-scoring list with 29 and 57 total points, 18 on the man advantage.
Breakout of the Season: It’s hard to name one on this team but defenseman Victor Hedman gets the nod. On paper he put together his fourth-straight 20-point season. He got to that level in 30 more games in his rookie campaign than it did this past season. He’s a big man who gets a good amount of ice time around 22 minutes a night so he makes a good play for the blue line on a fantasy team.
Disappointment of the Season: Goaltending got complacent with the offense it had in front of them. When you look at the numbers of the goalies on this team (Anders Lindback, Ben Bishop, Mathieu Garon and Cedrick Desjardins) all of them had a goals against average between 2.90 and 3.00. Someone needs to step up and lock down the top spot. And stop the bleeding in goal.
Team Analysis: They started out 6-1-0 and then just fell on their nose to a 6-6-1 record in the first two weeks of February. The skids started after that and they barely got a look at .500 for the rest of the season with a 3-8-3 April killing any chance of making the playoffs from arguably the weakest division in hockey. We all knew their early-season offensive outburst (37 goals in the first seven games) wouldn’t sustain itself. But when the offense dried up, the goalies were exposed.
2013-2014 Story Lines: Who will be between the pipes for this team? The four guys above didn’t cut the mustard. How will Jon Cooper and company coach this team effectively? Cooper got named to the top spot in March and this will be his first full season at the helm. Adding Rick Bowness as an assistant helps him greatly.
2013-2014 Fantasy Guys to Have: Stamkos, St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Teddy Purcell, Hedman, Benoit Pouliot, Matt Carle,
Guys on the Fringe: BJ Crombeen (only if your team needs penalty minutes), The team’s starting goaltender.
| PLAYER | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | ATOI | PPG | PPA | SHG | SHA | SOG | SPCT |
| Martin St. Louis, RW | 48 | 17 | 43 | 60 | 0 | 14 | 21:59 | 3 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 112 | 15.2 |
| Steven Stamkos, C | 48 | 29 | 28 | 57 | -4 | 32 | 22:01 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 157 | 18.5 |
| Teddy Purcell, RW | 48 | 11 | 25 | 36 | -1 | 12 | 16:45 | 3 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 94 | 11.7 |
| Vincent Lecavalier, C | 39 | 10 | 22 | 32 | -5 | 29 | 17:53 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 11.6 |
| Cory Conacher, LW† | 35 | 9 | 15 | 24 | -3 | 16 | 14:22 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 53 | 17.0 |
| Matt Carle, D | 48 | 5 | 17 | 22 | 1 | 4 | 23:45 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 7.6 |
| Benoit Pouliot, LW | 34 | 8 | 12 | 20 | 8 | 15 | 13:14 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 13.3 |
| Victor Hedman, D | 44 | 4 | 16 | 20 | 1 | 31 | 22:40 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 5.3 |
| Alex Killorn, C | 38 | 7 | 12 | 19 | -6 | 14 | 16:49 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 8.5 |
| Sami Salo, D | 46 | 2 | 15 | 17 | 5 | 16 | 20:59 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 4.2 |
| Tom Pyatt, C | 43 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 5 | 12 | 13:35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 13.3 |
| Nate Thompson, C | 45 | 7 | 8 | 15 | -2 | 17 | 14:20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 12.1 |
| Eric Brewer, D | 48 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 3 | 30 | 20:31 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 56 | 7.1 |
| Richard Panik, RW | 25 | 5 | 4 | 9 | -2 | 4 | 11:20 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 14.7 |
| B.J. Crombeen, RW | 44 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 112 | 11:05 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 2.0 |
| Ryan Malone, LW | 24 | 6 | 2 | 8 | -3 | 22 | 15:44 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 16.2 |
| Keith Aulie, D | 45 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 60 | 12:49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 5.4 |
| Tyler Johnson, C | 14 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 13:04 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 27.3 |
| Radko Gudas, D | 22 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 38 | 17:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 6.5 |
| Marc-Andre Bergeron, D † | 12 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 12:22 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 4.5 |
| Adam Hall, RW† | 20 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 23 | 10:18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 0.0 |
| Ondrej Palat, LW | 14 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 11:44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 12.5 |
| Dana Tyrell, C | 21 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -3 | 4 | 10:21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.3 |
| Pierre-Cedric Labrie, LW | 19 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 30 | 8:33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 12.5 |
| Brett Connolly, RW | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 10:16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10.0 |
| Brendan Mikkelson, D | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 9:46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Mike Angelidis, LW | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7:22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Brian Lee, D | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -13 | 16 | 13:55 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0.0 |
| Mathieu Roy, D | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 14:07 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Andrej Sustr, D | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 10:43 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 |
| Matt Taormina, D | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 16:39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Mark Barberio, D | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 15:30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 |
| J.T. Wyman, RW | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 13:31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| PLAYER | GP | W | L | OTL | GAA | TOI | SV | SV% | SHO | TGA | TSA | PIM |
| Anders Lindback | 24 | 10 | 10 | 1 | 2.90 | 1304:11 | 579 | .902 | 0 | 63 | 642 | 0 |
| Mathieu Garon | 18 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 2.90 | 910:04 | 383 | .897 | 0 | 44 | 427 | 0 |
| Ben Bishop† | 9 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2.99 | 502:26 | 277 | .917 | 1 | 25 | 302 | 2 |
| Cedrick Desjardins | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3.00 | 160:06 | 65 | .890 | 0 | 8 | 73 | 0 |
