Friday, September 26, 2014

Tampa Bay Lightning Season Preview 2014-15

Tampa Bay's season last year was looking pretty promising up until that game in Boston when Stamkos broke his leg. I was there and it was insane, even in Boston all the air was taken out of the building. You could have heard a pin drop in the garden. It's hard for any team to bounce back from losing their star player. The Lightning had a few rough games coming back from that but they sort of figured things out eventually. Look for Stamkos to have a huge year this season. The guy is insane to watch. The Lightning also lost St. Louis which was a blow to them. The guy had been their forever and was a definite leader and that hurt them. Yzerman definitely shot himself in the foot when he didn't select St. Louis for the Canadian Olympic roster. After that, St. Louis requested a trade. Good job, GM. 


Acquisitions: The Lightning made some good moves this summer by adding Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman to their roster. Those are 2 good players that should definitely help the team. Tampa also got Brenden Morrow and Evgeni Nabokov who could be a good back up for Bishop. 

Strengths: There has been a lot of speculation about whether Ben Bishop can produce the same elite season that he had last year. There are a ton of doubters but I for one think he'll be able to do it. I thought he looked really solid and it didn't look like just a fluke to me. Although, I do believe that he needs to stay healthy and be able to play the full season. Another huge plus for the Lightning is that they have a good group of solid young players. They have Jonathan Drouin who is already a front runner to win rookie of the year as well as Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson and Alex Killorn. Victor Hedman is another Lightning player that has really been coming into this own lately as well. If you look at this group of players, it's pretty daunting. 

Season Prediction: I think the Lightning will make it to the Eastern Conference championship and lose to the Bruins.

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