Best Bolts

25 autumns ago the Tampa Bay Lightning took the ice for the first time, and there have obviously been many ups and downs since then.

With their 25th season now more than 25 percent complete, there are many ways I could commemorate the Bolts' 25th anniversary. I could do a post about their history in general; or one covering their 25 greatest moments; or one that covers their 10 highest points and 10 lowest points. I could do one about the greatest players in franchise history; or the greatest plays in franchise history; or the most overlooked moments in franchise history.

But I am choosing to do something a little different, because when it comes to hockey and my hometown team, I like to be a little different. Hockey is the most international of this continent's big four team sports, and in recognition of that fact, this post will recap the top three Lightning players from each of the countries that are widely considered to be hockey's "big six" powerhouses.

Because this is not intended to be a ranking of first-second-third, the players (and nations) are named in purely alphabetical order... although there are two cases where you will probably be thinking to yourself, "Hey, John clearly thinks this guy is a cut below the other two!"

And here we go.

CANADA

Because so many Canadians populate NHL rosters, a list like this makes it almost unfair to limit a team's allotment to just three. As of two years ago (the most recent tabulation I could find), 48.6 percent of NHL'ers hailed from The Great White North, with the other 51.4 percent divided between more than ten different countries. For the Bolts, my "three from each" approach means stars such as Brad Richards, Dave Andreychuk, Dan Boyle, Brian Bradley, and Daren Puppa are getting left off the list... but I'm sticking with the approach nonetheless, and as I see it, Tampa Bay's top troika of Canucks is as follows.

Vincent Lecavalier
Vinny Lecavalier (to this day fans refer to him simply as Vinny, no last name needed) was drafted by the Lightning with the first pick of the 1998 draft and remained with them all the way to 2013. He helped lead them to Stanley Cup glory in 2004 and to the conference finals in 2011. He ranks as their all-time leader in goals, even-strength goals, and games played; and second all-time leader in assists, points, game-winning goals, power play goals, and goals created (go here if you care to read how that stat is calculated).

Lecavalier won the Rocket Richard Trophy by leading the NHL in goals for the 2006-07 season; won the NHL Foundation Player Award in 2008; captained the Eastern Conference All-Star Team in 2008; and not to be forgotten, during the same year he helped the Bolts win the Stanley Cup, he was also the MVP of the World Cup of Hockey.

His double overtime goal in Game Three of the opening round of the 2003 playoffs kept the Lightning from falling into a 3-0 series hole against Washington, after which they proceeded to take that series and advance to the second round for the first time in history. His 2004 'tween-the-legs redirect of Andreychuk's shot, with 16.5 seconds left in regulation of Game Three against Montreal, is arguably the best goal in franchise history when you consider its difficulty, timeliness, and the fact it forced the game to overtime where the Bolts prevailed en route to sweeping that series and eventually winning the Cup.

And I haven't even mentioned the millions of dollars and countless hours of time Lecavalier has donated to start and sustain a center for pediatric cancer and blood disorders at All Children's Hospital, proving himself a community pillar of the first degree.

Martin St. Louis
The other all-world Quebecker from that Stanley Cup squad, Martin St. Louis, enjoyed a long run here from 2000 to 2014 that was almost entirely concurrent with Lecavalier's. St. Louis ranks as the Bolts' all-time leader in points, assists, game-winning goals, short-handed goals, hat tricks, and goals created; and second all-time in both goals and even-strength goals.

He led the NHL in points for the 2003-04 season and did it again in 2012-13, making him the oldest player to accomplish that feat (he was 37 compared to Wayne Gretzky doing it at 33) and also making him just the second player to do it nine seasons apart. In 2004 St. Louis won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player, plus the Lester B. Pearson Award for the league's most outstanding player as voted by the players. He also won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (for "sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability") on three separate occasions.

In triple overtime of Game Six against Washington in 2003, he scored the goal which delivered the first playoff series victory in franchise history. Then, in double overtime of Game Six against Calgary in 2004, he scored what is arguably the most important goal in franchise history -- forcing the Stanley Cup Final to Game Seven, which, as we all know, the Bolts wound up winning.

On January 13th of this year, St. Louis became the first player in Lightning history to have his number retired: An honor well-deserved by the undersized dynamo whose #26 now hangs from the rafters forever.

Steven Stamkos
He is only 27 and still in his prime, but that doesn't matter because Steven Stamkos absolutely belongs on this list. He has won the Rocket Richard Trophy twice, and over the last nine seasons is the only player in the NHL to record a 60-goal season. He has already passed the 600-point mark, and with 624 points in 616 games played he has done so at a greater than point-per-game pace. Stamkos holds the franchise records for most goals in a season and highest goals-per-game average in a career; and despite his youth he holds the franchise record for most power play goals in a career and is tied with Martin St. Louis for most hat tricks in a career.

But as outstanding as all of that is, the most tremendous thing so far in Stamkos's career is the simple fact that he inked a new contract with the Bolts last June when he was days away from becoming the highest profile player to hit the free agent market in years. Heavy hitting franchises from "traditional" and "big" markets were lining up to open their Brinks trucks and lure him to their cities. The richest franchise on Earth, the Toronto Maple Leafs, sought to make Stamkos the face of their team and the hockey savior of a city that proclaims itself the hockey capitol of the world. Their pitch was aided by appeals from Toronto's mayor himself and by the CEO of Canadian Tire, who promised bazillions in endorsement dollars in the event Stammer chose to take his skills to Canada's biggest metropolis.

Stammer, however, had other ideas. He opted to remain right here, and in order for the Bolts to remain a serious Cup contender (i.e., in order for them to be able to keep other big time players on the roster without exceeding the salary cap) he signed an eight-year contract that pays him at least a couple million dollars less per year than he could have gotten from another organization on the open market. For that, he instantly earned the title of GBE -- Greatest Bolt Ever -- even though his Bolts story is far from over.


CZECH REPUBLIC
This country churns out world class hockey players by the bushel, and the number of them who have played for the Lightning is so big that the names I had to leave off this list are surprising. How can I not include the stalwart Ondrej Palat? How can I not include Roman Hamrlik, the first draft pick in team history, whose 65-point campaign in 1995-96 remained the highest-scoring season by a Tampa Bay defenseman for 21 years? Well, this is how...

Petr Klima
Brian Bradley was the Bolts' first all-around offensive star, but Petr Klima was their first true sniper. His 15.5 shooting percentage during his four years in Tampa Bay is the second-highest career shooting percentage in team history, trailing only Stamkos and sitting 0.3 ahead of Nikita Kucherov Himself (whose to-date career is also four years).

Klima had already made hockey history before he joined the Lightning in 1993. Eight years previously, at the age of 20, he defected from communist Czechoslovakia by sneaking away from the Czech National Team while it was in West Germany and rendezvousing with Detroit Red Wings VP Jim Lite and assistant coach Nick Polano. They secreted him from city to city for several days to elude Czech police until they could get him on a plane and fly him to America. After four successful seasons with the Wings he was traded to Edmonton during the 1989-90 season, and went on to score one of the most famous goals in NHL history when he beat Boston goalie Andy Moog through the five hole 15 minutes into triple overtime to win Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals.

On March 27, 1995 -- four years to the day before I wed the lovely Erika -- I sat in the Thunderdome and watched Klima take a perfect outlet pass from Brian Bradley halfway through overtime, race all alone into the offensive zone, and flip the puck past Patrick Roy to give the Bolts a 3-2 win over the stinkin' Habs. Thirteen months later, in the first NHL playoff game I ever attended, he blasted a slap shot from the high slot that scorched the ice and banged into the net behind a Ron Hextall who had no chance. Petr Klima was a bright spot during this franchise's early and heady days.

Pavel Kubina
The Lightning went through a dispiriting down period in the late 1990's before rising to Stanley Cup prominence in the first half of the 2000's. Although forwards like Lecavalier, St. Louis, and Richards are universally remembered for leading the team out of the weeds and to the top of the peak, this feisty defenseman from a 400-year-old village in the shadow of the Moravian-Silesian Beskid Mountains deserves to have his name remembered just as universally as theirs.

By giving the Lightning an imposing force on the blue line, Pavel Kubina afforded their budding forwards the freedom to take the necessary risks to develop into offensive stars, and with his speed and hockey smarts he contributed mightily to the offense as well. Take a look at the franchise's record book and you will see that Kubina ranks fifth all-time in shots and in the top ten in assists, game-winning goals, power play goals, and short-handed goals. Plus, he ranks third in games played, trailing only Lecavalier and St. Louis. And lest the flurry of offense-related rankings mislead you into assuming Kubina was a soft, offense-minded defenseman, don't forget that he ranks second all-time in penalty minutes!

He is an automotive buff, and since retiring from the game that made him rich, he has simultaneously indulged his hobby and contributed to our local economy by opening Private Allstar Cars in Largo. Though born behind the Iron Curtain, he is now a Bay Area Man through and through.

Vaclav "Vinny" Prospal
I have no idea why people insisted on giving Vaclav Prospal the non-Czech-sounding nickname Vinny. Maybe they thought Vaclav sounds too much like a vampire. Maybe they just liked the way "Vinny Prospal" sounds. Or maybe they liked the idea of saying "Vinny passes to Vinny," since Prospal spent much of his time playing on Lecavalier's left wing.

At the end of the day, who cares why people started calling him Vinny? All that matters is that he was a productive Bolt who was proud to be a Bolt and loved every minute of the years he plied his trade while wearing a Tampa Bay Lightning sweater.

Though he played less than six full seasons with the team, Prospal ranks fifth in franchise history in total points (52 ahead of the man behind him); fifth in goals created; sixth in assists; and seventh in both goals and even-strength goals. Gotta love him.


FINLAND
When you consider how many hockey players hail from Finland, it's surprising how few Finnish stars have suited up for the Lightning. But that does not mean we've had no good ones over the years.

Sean Bergenheim
Although he played here for only one campaign (2010-11), Bergenheim was such a standout during that campaign's post-season that he will always hold a special place in the hearts of Lightning fans. Despite playing on the third line, he led those Bolts with nine playoff goals -- all at even strength -- including the lone score in their 1-0 Game Seven victory over the Penguins. He and Dominic Moore clicked with a maneuver in which Bergenheim would skate/drift into the right circle and Moore would feed him with a no-look pass from below the goal line, which he routinely converted by snapping the puck past goalies who had no time to discern what was happening.

Unfortunately, after sustaining a still-undisclosed lower body injury in the Eastern Conference Finals, Bergenheim missed most of Game Four and all of Games Six and Seven. The Bolts lost that series by a single Game Seven goal, and many people will always believe that our team would have prevailed in that series and perhaps won the Cup had he not been sidelined down the stretch.

Valtteri Filppula
This even-keeled and genuinely vampire-looking native of the city of Vantaa played a major role in returning the Lightning to contender status this decade. A slick passer with a crisp shot and knack for scoring at key times, his career shooting percentage with the Lightning is in the top ten and higher even than Lecavalier's and Andreychuk's.

However, Filppulla is best known for doing All The Little Things that are crucial to winning but don't show up on the stat sheet, things like poking the puck away from opposing forwards, deflecting opposing shots, chipping opposing passes off course, and winning puck battles along the boards. Filppula was above 50% in face-offs for three of his four seasons here and contributed 22 playoff points versus only four playoff penalty minutes. You could not compile a wished-for hockey roster without including a player like him.

Sami Salo
Much like Sean Bergenheim, this skilled defenseman did not spend anywhere near the lion's share of his pro career in Tampa Bay. Salo was 37 when he signed with the Bolts and wound up playing here for only the final two of his fifteen years in the NHL. Nonetheless, he had a significant impact because his reliable, two-way play solidified the Bolts' back end and returned them to the playoffs as they transitioned into a new era that could no longer include Lecavalier and St. Louis. Despite injuries, Salo played 73 games (regular season and playoffs combined) in his final season and opted to retire 19 days before his 40th birthday.


RUSSIA
Two of the following players from the Land of the Firebird are no-brainers. Deciding who to tap for the third spot proved taxing, however. Here we go...

Nikolai Khabibulin
There was a span of time when Nikolai Ivanovich Khabibulin was arguably the best goaltender on Planet Earth, and fortunately for us, that was when he was wore the Lightning's sweater. While a member of the Bolts he also played for Team Russia at the 2002 Olympics and was named the best goaltender of those games. In 2004 he delivered Lord Stanley's Cup to our city(ies) by the bay with a stellar post-season during which he pitched five shutouts, recorded a .933 save percentage, and allowed opposing teams to score just 1.71 goals per game.

Khabibulin's performance in Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the best game ever played by a Tampa Bay netminder: After Brad Richards scored less than three minutes into the game, Khabibulin made the 1-0 lead hold up the rest of the night against a Calgary Flames onslaught that peaked in the final period when they outshot the Lightning 12-5. Turns out they called him "the Buhlin wall" with good reason.

Nikita Kucherov
Yes, he is only 24, but he is the best shooter currently playing in the NHL and is already one of the greatest players in franchise history.

A lefty born less than 90 miles from the Black Sea, Nikita Kucherov has the quickest release I have ever seen and expertly deceives opponents in multiple ways. He is deadly on both the forehand and backhand; is a premier passer as well as a premier shooter; and also plays sound defense. And he does not hesitate to battle for pucks in the corners or to bow up and physically challenge opponents who are trying to push people around.

Kucherov's goal and point production has increased every year he has been in the league, from 9/18 to 29/65 to to 30/66 to 40/85 -- and so far this season, a mere 30 games in, he has already racked up 42 points via 21 goals and 21 assists.

And, the man they call Kuch has made his mark not just in the regular season but also in the post-season, thus far having notched 42 points in 45 playoff games while going plus-20. His long-distance overtime rocket past Henrik Lundqvist in Game Three of the 2015 Eastern Conference Finals is forever etched in Lightning lore -- as are his stick blade redirect past Corey Crawford in Game Two of that year's Stanley Cup Finals, and the fact of him scoring late goals to force OT in both Game Three and Game Four of their 2016 series against the Islanders, with 0:38 and 3:16 left on the clock, respectively.

Alexander Selivanov
This Moscow native is sure to be the most controversial inclusion on this list because his tenure here was so mercurial. His valleys often seemed deeper than his peaks seemed high, and there are many people who accuse him of not living up to his potential. Given the trajectory of the current season, there is at least one Russian presently playing for the Bolts who would stand a good chance of replacing Selivanov on this list if I were to compile it next year. However, I am compiling it today, based on what has already happened up to now, and Selly deserves to be recognized.

Alexander Selivanov had a wrist shot so wicked that some goalies still haven't seen pucks that blew by them them off his stick. He arrived on our shores 23 years ago, as a 23-year-old who had never traveled overseas and whose English was very limited. He had a ho-hum rookie season with 16 points and a minus-8 in 43 games, but his sophomore campaign (1995-96) was his breakout season and also the first one in which the Lightning made the playoffs. One of the most-forgotten facts in Lightning history is that Selivanov led that first playoff club in goals by a considerable margin, finishing with eight more than Brian Bradley and nine more than Petr Klima. In the franchise's first ever home playoff game, he scored the winning goal 2:04 into overtime by banging a rebound through the legs of Philadelphia's Ron Hextall.

If you want to focus on Selivanov's slumps, that is your right, and if you want to focus on him sometimes seeming to struggle in the communication and maturity departments, that too is your right. Nevetheless, you cannot write about the good times in Lightning history without writing about good things he did as a player, and I have to ask: When was the last time you moved to a foreign country where you didn't really know the language, and as soon as you arrived in that country you worked in a job where the public could watch and could constantly criticize your every move?


SWEDEN
Sweden needs no introduction as a hockey power, and these three Swedes should need no introduction as hockey players.

Victor Hedman
Now in his ninth season -- and still only 26! -- this Thor-looking man is the best defenseman in team history. For years now he has been called on to defend against the best forwards that every opponent has to offer, and has routinely come out on top. Victor Hedman is a Norris Trophy finalist for a reason.

However, his two-way game is so outstanding that people whose hockey knowledge comes mostly from highlights might not even realize he's a defenseman. Hedman excels not merely in hunkering down in the defensive zone, but in turning the action in the other direction and triggering offensive rushes. He does this with pinpoint outlet passes, and by turning on his jets and carrying the puck downstream like a point guard. He quarterbacks the play in the offensive zone with such effectiveness that, in spite of his job title, he ranks fifth in Lightning history in assists (252) and sixth in points (319).

In other words, Victor Hedman lives by that famous axiom that the best defense is a good offense. Perhaps the best example of this came in the second round of the 2016 playoffs, when the Lightning went up against the New York Islanders and their all-world centerman John Tavares. Back in the 2009 draft the Isles had taken Tavares with the top overall pick while the Bolts took Hedman second overall. When they met in that second round playoff series, the two players were regularly matched against each other and Tampa Bay's Swede was superior to New York's Ontarian. Tavares scored in the second period of Game One, and from that moment forward managed neither a goal nor an assist for the remainder of the series, whereas Hedman rang up eight points including the series-winning goal.

Fredrik Modin
In my 2014 post celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Lightning's first Stanley Cup, I wrote: "With a lumberjack's work ethic and an uncanny nose for the puck, Fredrik Modin was the prototypical Swede. It was he who scored the winning goal in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Finals, and it is worth noting that two years later he helped lead Team Sweden to its first gold medal of the Oympics' 'NHL Era.'"

I wish I was always that succinct, but I'm not, and today I feel compelled to add that Modin was both productive and responsible at every spot on the ice, offensively and defensively, able to outrace you in a speed game or outmuscle you in a chippy one, whatever the situation required. He ranks sixth in team history in shots, fourth in even-strength goals, and fifth in total goals. When he represented the Bolts at the 2001 All-Star Game, he won the Hardest Shot Competition with a blast that registered at 102.1 mph.

And since we are talking about greatness, I also have to point out that Modin is one of only 27 people in the Triple Gold Club -- which is to say that he is one of only 27 people in all of history, from all the nations of the globe, to have won a Stanley Cup and Olympic gold medal and World Championship gold medal. Select company, indeed.

Anton Stralman
After the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals ended with the upstart Lightning having come up just short against the dynastic Blackhawks, ESPN's Craig Custance wrote this about Anton Stralman: "The 28-year-old defenseman finally found a team that appreciates his subtle game. With Hedman, he teamed up to form a duo that effectively shut down the Blackhawks' biggest stars in this series when they were on the ice against them. The only problem was, they couldn't always be on the ice."

That might be the best brief summary ever written of Stralman's play, for which "subtle" is definitely the perfect adjective. Stralman might not have the blinding speed of Erik Karlsson, but he is quick on the puck and never gets caught out of position. He is smallish and might not deliver hits with the brute force of Radko Gudas, but he is strong as hell and knocks opponents off the puck while rarely getting knocked off it himself. He does not engage in dirty play like Duncan Keith, but he backchecks and battles along the boards with piss and vinegar.

Stralman's hockey IQ is through the roof and he does not hesitate to mentor younger players -- as evidenced by how he has aided in this season's startlingly rapid development of 19-year-old Mikael Sergachev, who has scored the game-winning goal in four of the Lightning's 22 victories to date.

Simply put, Anton Stralman is a hockey player's hockey player and company man's company man. Every team in the league would love to have him on its roster, and we are very fortunate he is on ours.


UNITED STATES
God bless America, land that I love! Yes, my own country -- from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam -- has also produced some stellar performers for my Tampa Bay Lightning.

Ben Bishop
Colorado-born and Missouri-raised, Ben Bishop made it to the pros after a solid NCAA career at the University of Maine. The Lightning acquired him by trade in 2013 and his impact was immediate, as he backstopped them to the playoffs after a two-season absence. Bishop ranks as the franchise's all-time leader in literally every single goaltending stat there is: save percentage, goals-against average, saves, shutouts, wins, and wins in a season.

His positive effect cannot be overstated. As a money goaltender, he contributed to the team's offensive growth by making his teammates confident about taking risks on offense, secure in their knowledge that he could bail them out if things went wrong. He is the best puck-handling goalie of his generation (sorry Mike Smith) and used that skill to turn the tables by directing pucks in what opponents would call the "wrong" direction, feeding outlet passes to teammates to start offensive rushes. After all, opponents can't shoot if it's you instead of they who is controlling the vulcanized rubber.

Unlike Nikolai Khabibulin, Ben Bishop never won a Stanley Cup while playing in Tampa Bay, but he was a two-time Vezina finalist and his excellence absolutely extended to the post-season. He got the Bolts to the Eastern Conference Finals twice and Stanley Cup Finals once and went 3-1 in games in which the Bolts faced elimination (injury caused him to miss the 2014 Montreal series and 2016 Pittsburgh series). In 2015 Bishop became only the third goalie in NHL history to pitch two Game Seven shutouts in one post-season, the others being Patrick Roy and Tim Thomas. That same year, during the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Rangers, he became the only goalie in NHL history to shut the Rangers out in back to back playoff games at Madison Square Garden.

The Lightning made the right business decision when they traded him after four years and handed the goaltending keys over to the much younger and equally talented Andrei Vasilevskiy, but still, it will feel a little strange if they win the Cup at some point in the next few years and Ben Bishop's name doesn't get engraved on it with them.

Ryan Callahan
Ryan Callahan's name, like Alexander Selivanov's, will generate some controversy by appearing on this list. My first impulse was to include not Callahan but Brian Boyle, due largely to the latter's clutch playoff performances and face-off expertise. A strong case could also be made for Shaun Chambers, the Bolts' best "defensive defenseman" in their fledgling years. But hear me out.

The main argument against our current assistant captain is that he missed most of last season (due to having his second hip surgery in eight months), and the season before that he was noticeably slowed by injuries that included a right hip labral tear. As a result, recency bias works against him because some people can't get past the thought of a man being largely invisible on the ice for two years while being paid an annual salary of $5.8 million.

But think about this: The main reason Bran Boyle played for Tampa Bay from 2014 to 2017, a stretch during which he made a huge impact in two deep playoff runs, is that Callahan reached out to him and convinced him to sign with the Bolts as a free agent. And even more significantly, Callahan also convinced Anton Stralman to come here as a free agent, and as we all know Stralman is now indispensable. This means that two key cogs in the Lightning machine that has been so successful this decade might never have played here if not for Callahan.

And by the way, Cally's on-ice game is far from shabby. Like the aforementioned Valtteri Filppulla, he is an All The Little Things kind of player who makes life difficult for opponents, and on top of that he brings an extra punch of derring-do by never hesitating to sacrifice his body to block a shot. In fact, he was such a shot-blocking machine in the 2015 playoffs, including the SCF, that if only one or two more Bolts had done the same it probably would have been the Bolts rather than the Blackhawks who ended up drinking from the chalice. Plus, if you think stuff that shows up statistically is supremely important, don't forget that Callahan rang up 54 points in the last full season he completed (2014-15).

Tyler Johnson
The 5'9" spark plug from Spokane made a splash as soon as he arrived, tallying 50 points in his first season and finishing third in the voting for the 2014 Calder Memorial Trophy (aka, NHL Rookie of the Year). One year later, he had arguably the best post-season of any player in the NHL during the Bolts' deep run to the SCF.

Tyler Johnson's 23 points in 26 playoff games led the league in 2015, as did his 13 playoff goals. One of the highlights from that run was his OT winner in Game Two against Detroit, which he potted after scoring one goal and assisting on anther in the final five minutes of regulation to erase a two-goal deficit and force overtime. Other highlights include the winner against Montreal with 1.1 seconds remaining in Game Three, and a natural hat trick against the New York Rangers in Game Two of the conference finals.

And Johnson is no one-year wonder, as evidenced by him churning out 17 points in 17 playoff games the following season, when the Bolts pushed the eventual Cup-winners all the way to the seventh game of the Eastern Conference Finals. Thus far in his Lightning career, Johnson has played in 47 playoff contests and accounted for 42 playoff points on a perfectly even 21 goals and 21 assists.

But all that is "just" playoffs. Overall, Johnson already ranks in the team's all-time top ten in goals, short-handed goals, hat tricks, goals per game, points per game, and goals created -- and in the top five in game-winning goals and plus/minus. No wonder the team recently signed him to a seven-year extension!


Well, that's it for now. It will be interesting to do this again a quarter-century from now and see how many of these guys are still on the list after the organization turns 50. Until next time: Au revoir!

Third One Done & Lost

My Tampa Bay Lightning saw their season come to a disappointing end Thursday night, in large part because they failed to capitalize on the fact that Pittsburgh was down to just one good defenseman in Games Six and Seven of the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Penguins are good, maybe the best team in the league given their depth of skill at forward, and they played extremely well and deserved to win. The Lightning did not just "hand it to them."

Nonetheless, Tampa Bay had a 3-2 series lead, after which Pittsburgh found themselves down to one strong defenseman because of Trevor Daley's broken ankle. With the Bolts' much vaunted speed and skill at forward (and with their often-quarterbacking defenseman Victor Hedman) this was a golden, gift-wrapped opportunity for them to exploit to close out the series... But instead, they performed obviously worse than in the two games prior and they got badly outplayed, dropping Games Six and Seven to blow the opportunity that was before them.

In other words, they proved they do not -- at least not yet -- have what it takes to be a champion, despite being built specifically to win the Cup and acting like that was their lone raison d'etre this season. That led me to post a Facebook rant which generated some thumbs-up and some vociferous thumbs-down.

My rant was harsh and critical and I will not hide from my words. I said that ending the season the way they did made it a failure, and that it would have been better to miss the playoffs than go out like they did.

What I was getting at, but may not have been clear about, is that these Bolts are so talented and determined that merely having a good season is beneath them. Having a good season but only winning half of the possible playoff rounds -- and getting horribly outplayed to end the third round, even though they had a clear lane to win it and were talented enough to win it -- means they did not maximize their potential.

It was too negative of me to say it would have been better to not make the playoffs. But as anyone who has ever been around me when I am playing a sport or doing something I care about can attest, I am fiercely competitive, and witheringly critical of my own performance, and would rather finish last than second. In my brain, last place means you just weren't good enough, while second place means you were good enough but didn't get it done. The former suggests no fault of your own, the latter does.

Call that a psychological defect or character flaw if you want. You are probably right to a certain extent.

But do not, as some have done, suggest that me ranting means I am not a true or worthy fan of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

I have watched and rooted for this team since Day One, which was in the autumn of 1992 when I was still matriculating at Auburn University. I remember being up in my college town, sitting at a table in Touchdowns Pub & Eatery, the night the Lightning won their inaugural game 7-3 over the Chicago Blackhawks.

I remember the date of the first game I attended in person: January 26, 1994. They outplayed and outchanced the stinkin' Florida Panthers, but John Vanbiesbrouck turned almost everything away and the game ended in a 1-1 tie (there were no shootouts back then, kiddos).

In 1998, sitting in Florida, I wrote a page and a half letter to the editor of the Edmonton Sun because one of its sportswriters had, in my opinion, slandered Tampa Bay hockey fans. I remember the writer's name (Robert Tychkowski) and his exact words that most set me off (he said we "wouldn't know snow unless it was shipped in from Colombia").

16 years ago, when the Lightning were floundering in their darkest days, I sat at a table in Port Angeles, Washington -- within sight of Victoria, British Columbia -- and defended the team's history and fan base while talking to a Canadian couple (a perfectly delightful couple, I hasten to add).

This little blog o' mine is a pure labor of love on which I make not a penny. But for years now I have spent many late night and early morning hours writing posts about the Lightning after Erika and the kids have gone to bed. Some of the posts have been glowing, some have been critical, and some have been "down the middle," but they have all been an honest and objective appraisal of what my eyes and brain tell me. I would not have carved such time out of my life and sacrificed so much sleep (sometimes at the expense of my liver) if I did not love this team.

Being a fan does not mean oblige a person to refrain from criticizing his team when criticism is warranted. In my view, withholding criticism simply makes you a yes man.

I complimented the Bolts after they lost in last year's Stanley Cup Finals, and was generally positive about them after they got swept in the first round the year before that. I did not flip out when they lost the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals in a Game Seven.

In each of those years, with their experience level taken into account, the Bolts made the most of their ability and maxed out their potential. This season was different, and was also the last year of this roster's window of opportunity before looming salary cap issues (and the specter of having to leave players exposed in a possible expansion draft) start to impose gut-wrenching personnel losses. This was their shot, and they may not have won the Cup regardless, but the way they went down in Games Six and Seven was beneath them -- and if I am going to opine, I am going to be true to my opinion.

I challenge anyone to read not just the above posts, but the one I wrote when Martin St. Louis retired, or my one about the Lightning's first playoff team (which lost in the first round after having a series lead, by the way), or my one acknowledging the tenth anniversary of their Stanley Cup, and tell me they weren't written by a true and worthy fan.

I do have good memories of this season. I do appreciate Victor Hedman taking up the slack by playing seemingly infinite minutes when Anton Stralman was out. I enjoyed the clutch scoring of Nikita Kucherov, the dazzling emergence of Jonathan Drouin, the elimination game shutouts by Ben Bishop, and the determined goaltending of Andrei Vasilevskiy after Bishop got injured.

But none of that changes the fact that the season was a failure by the team's own criteria. The team had one goal; and not only did it not attain that goal, it finished farther away from it than it did the year before. That is a fact, and a significant one. I am not going to refrain from saying it.

And I am not going to refrain from being a fan of this team. There is not a player on our roster I would swap for any player on another team's roster. There is a not a coach in the NHL who I would rather have behind our bench than Jon Cooper. There is not a GM in the world I would rather have in our front office than Steve Yzerman, and not an owner in the world I would rather have than Jeffrey Vinik.

Forever shall I say Go Bolts!


PS: In the interest of full disclosure, below is that Facebook rant I was talking about. I took the liberty of underlining the words that I think some people might not have paid attention to when they read it that night:

I could say well you had a good season Ligthtning, thanks for some good memories... But that would be a lie about the way I feel, and would be the kind of thing that is said by losers like the Dallas Stars... The Bolts had a 3-2 series lead, with the Penguins down to one good defenseman, and they failed to close out the series... Last year they made it to the finals and this year they returned the entire roster except for their worst player, yet they went backwards instead of forwards... Their backup goalie played his ass off and his teammates gave him no support, while Pittsburgh's backup played his ass off and his teammates did give him support... It would have been better to not make the playoffs than go out like this. This team failed. It is extremely unfair for me to say that from my couch, but it is true. Gotta call it like I see it.

Second One Won & Done

By disposing of Detroit on April 21st, the Tampa Bay Lightning became the first team to advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

And now, having disposed of the NY Islanders yesterday afternoon, they are also the first team to advance past the second round.

They won both series 4-1, which means they are 8-2 so far this post-season. And they have accomplished that despite being depleted by injuries, as Steven Stamkos has missed the entire post-season due to blood clots; and indispensable top-pairing defenseman Anton Stralman has missed it all with a broken fibula; and J.T. Brown, a hard-grinding character guy who makes things happen by doing the dirty work, has missed most of it after sustaining an undisclosed lower body injury  in Game Two against Detroit.

The Bolts are 2-0 in overtime and notched shutouts in both series-clinching games. Although they have played fewer games than all the other other teams that are still alive, Nikita Kucherov has more goals these playoffs (nine) than anyone else in the league while he and Tyler Johnson rank third and second in total points production, with 12 and 13, respectively. And they are both +11, which makes them tied for first in plus/minus followed immediately by Alex Killorn at +10.

In other words, this Lightning squad's playoff performance is starting to seem spookily strong.

However, the playoffs are only halfway over and a sickeningly strong opponent awaits them in the Eastern Conference Final, regardless of whether that opponent is the Pens or Caps.

Before the ECF begins, here are some thoughts about the round that just ended and what lies ahead.


Bish
Goaltender Ben Bishop missed the 2014 playoffs because of injuries, so last year's run to the Stanley Cup Final marked his first ever playoff appearance.

Combining that run with this year's, he has won five of the six series in which he has played, and has clinched four of those five with shutouts: 2-0 over Detroit in Game Seven of the first round in 2015; 2-0 over the NY Rangers in Game Seven of the 2015 ECF; 1-0 over Detroit in Game Five of the first round this year; and 4-0 over the Islanders in Game Five of the second round this year.

Plus, he is 5-0 in overtime.

So far this post-season he has racked up a .938 save percentage and 1.89 goals-against average.

In the recently ended series against the Isles, Bishop kept the Bolts alive in Games Three and Four by withstanding Blitzkrieg-style first-period assaults in which they were outshot 17-9 and 15-6. In both instances, they came back to force OT and then won in OT.

That, mes amies, is championship caliber goaltending.


Kuch
Nikita Kucherov is an elite sniper with one of the quickest releases I've ever seen. But whereas most snipers are streaky, he is every bit as reliable as Old Faithful, that famed Yellowstone geyser that erupts every 35 to 120 minutes, day-in, day-out.

In the Lightning's ten playoff games, Kucherov's goal output has been as follows: two, one, zero, two, zero, one, zero, one, one, and one. In four of those games he scored the team's first goal. In two of them (Games Three and Four versus the Isles) he scored in the third period to force OT in games the team ultimately won.

And heres's the thing: Despite being a sniper who is known almost exclusively for his scoring, and despite being scratched for most of the 2014 playoffs because his defensive play was lacking, Nikita Kucherov has developed into an all-around player who digs pucks out of the corners and battles like a gladiator at the top of the crease.

That, mes amies, is superstar material.


Thor
With the first pick of the 2009 NHL draft, the Islanders opted for John Tavares, an uber talented centerman from Mississauga, Ontario.

With the second pick of that same draft, the Lightning opted for Victor Hedman, an uber talented defenseman from Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. With a home town like that and visage like this, surely you'll understand why some people call him Thor.

In any event, this year's second round matched Tavares and Thor head to head and Thor vanquished Tavares as though wielding Mjolnir tself.

Tavares dazzled the hockey world in the Isles' first round win over Florida. He accounted for nine points in six games capped by an exquisite, series-clinching, wrap-around goal in overtime in Game Six. His performance caused some to anoint him the present king of New York hockey, above King Henrik Lundqvist Himself.

But against the Lightning, forced to face Thor shift after shift, Tavares was defanged and dethroned and registered neither a goal nor an assist after the 8:59 mark of the second period of Game One. Across the course of five games, he managed to get off only ten shots on net.

Thor, on the the other hand, accounted for eight points in the series (four goals and four assists), including the series-winning goal, despite being a defenseman. I don't think I need to say more.


Signs they can go deep
Bishop. See above.

Also as noted above, they have made it this far, in so few games, despite being plagued by the injury bug.

They have won eight of ten playoff games despite having played only one complete game, and that game happens to have been the most recent, which shows they are going in the right direction.

Resilience and outstanding coaching. No matter how hard against the wall their backs may be, the Bolts keep an even keel and remain cool as a cucumber. They rise to and above the moment, rather than allowing the moment to overwhelm them. In this, they take the lead from Coach Jon Cooper and crash the net with it. There is no one else I would rather have leading my team.

Like I already said back on April 22nd, their penalty kill is to penalty killing what Prince was to music.


Signs they can't go deep
They have played ten playoff games and managed only one, perhaps two, complete games. That ain't gonna cut it if grasping the Holy Grail is your goal.

They always start slow.

They are always in the penalty box multiple times in the first period.

Their passes are seldom crisp until the third period rolls around.


But...
...we are in the ECF for the second year in a row and third in the past six; and while there are many logical reasons that either the Pens or Caps will be favored over us in the ECF, there are a few logical reasons to tab us the favorite.

Bring it on. I am temporarily satisfied.

Go Bolts!

First One Won & Done

My last two very late nights -- or maybe I should say my last two very early mornings -- have been spent writing a post about my thoughts concerning the Trump terror phenomenon (it's bad) and Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the twenty (it's good). Right now I should probably be finishing it.

But I just got done watching my Tampa Bay Lightning chuck aside the Detroit Red Wings and become the first NHL team to advance past the first round of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. So I am going to write about them instead, even though I won't finish writing this tonight (at least not to my anal retentive standards for hitting the "publish" button).

In any event, while typing away I am going to be listening to some "Little Red Corvette" and "Raspberry Beret." And, of course, "When Doves Cry." How dare Prince Rogers Nelson, aka Prince, die an untimely death this morning? I remember girls singing "Purple Rain" outside the walls of the late, great Riviera Middle School in '84 and '85, and I remember half the bus on the way to our eighth grade field trip to Disney World doing the same. The flesh-and-blood that created a big chunk of the soundtrack of my youth just got ripped away from the world, and I am not ok with that.

But before I get sidetracked, let me get back to hockey...

Bish

I've already written why Lightning goalie Ben Bishop deserves the Vezina. Tonight he proved it even more.

One of the things needed for a team to win the Stanley Cup is for its goalie to steal a game or two that it really shouldn't win. Until tonight the Bolts hadn't gotten that this post-season, but now they have.

The Wings dominated each of the first two periods but especially the second, when they notched six breakaways by my count, yet Bishop stopped 'em all. At the end of two, Detroit had 16 scoring chances to the Lightning's six, yet the score was tied at zero all because of Bishop. Not only did he turn shots away, he also played the puck like a forward, situationally stickhandling it away from the net and passing to teammates to keep it away from the Wings.

One round into the playoffs, he has a 1.61 GAA and .950 save percentage... This is only his second trip to the post-season, yet for his career he already has four post-season shutouts and three of them have been series-enders... He has given up two or fewer goals in 10 of his last 11 post-season games... Money. That's what he is.

Kuch

Nikita Kucherov did not score last night (I told you I wouldn't finish this the same night I started) but so what?

In the five games the Bolts have played these playoffs, he's tallied eight points and had two multi-goal games. Even though his career is still nascent (he's 22 and this is only his third season) he has rung up 31 points (16, 15) in 33 playoff games. And let's not forget that his first NHL goal came on his first shot, in his first shift, against none other than Henrik Lundqvist.

Kucherov has one of the quickest releases I've ever seen. Hell, Phil Esposito says it's one of the quickest he has ever seen. Four of his five goals in Round One came from the right circle on lasers that moved so fast they looked rapid even in slow motion. Being a lefty with a shot like that makes the right circle Kucherov's province, and he was so dominant from there against Detroit that from now on I might stop calling it the right circle and instead call it "The Kucherov."


Drouin
It's impossible to opine about the Detroit series without opining about the stellar job Jonathan Drouin has done in redeeming himself after the debacle which was the last half of his regular season.

In case you don't know, that debacle involved him demanding to be traded despite his youth and relative lack of production, then being demoted to Syracuse, then failing to report to Syracuse, then being suspended indefinitely until he finally ate crow and reported after a phone call to GM Steve Yzerman.

I'm trying to keep this post from becoming too long, so I will limit my Drouin comments to two things:

First, as impressive as his four-assist production has been -- and three of those four assists were highlight-reel creme de la creme set-ups -- I am most impressed by the way he is hitting people and showing the kind of piss and vinegar that is required for playoff success. He has made mistakes, including a few bad turnovers, but he is also proving he is more than willing to work hard and that he is worthy of people believing he can be a cornerstone.

Second, because the Lightning's skaters were so awful in Game Five, I have to point out that Drouin was not. He was one of only two skaters (the other being fourth-liner Valdislav Namestnikov) who showed jump and oomph throughout the whole game. (Apparently there was some flu going around the locker room that affected several players last night, but still...)


Signs they can go deep
For starters, see the above. Bishop is an elite goaltender and Kucherov is an elite sniper.

Also, Tyler Johnson again proved he is clutch and that his eye-popping performance in last year's playoffs was no fluke. He did that by scoring two third period goals to win Game Two.

The Bolts as a whole, and especially Ryan Callahan, are willing to sacrifice their bodies by blocking shots before they get to Bishop.

Valtteri Filppula is superb at the little things that make all the difference without ever appearing on the stat sheet.

The Bolts' penalty kill is to penalty killing what Prince was to music.

Their deep run last year gave them all the playoff experience they need.

Jon Cooper is one of the best coaches walking Planet Earth. There is literally nobody else I would rather have coaching my team.


Signs they can't go deep
Although they put the Wings away in five, which is good, the Bolts were outplayed in two of the five games.

Their defensive depth is shaky. Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman are one of the best top-pairing defense combos in the game, but Stralman remains sidelined by the fractured fibula he suffered three weeks ago; and when you get below them on the depth chart, Jason Garrison is the only D'man whose defensive acumen strikes genuine fear in the hearts of opponents.

Ten of their twelve goals against Detroit were scored by guys who play on their top playoff line. You definitely can't win the Cup (and probably can't make a deep run) if you don't get points "down-roster" from lower lines. Stars often cancel each other out, causing a situation in which the unsung guys are the ones who make the difference in a series; and so far, where points are concerned, the Lightning's unsung guys have not shown any reason to remove them from the ranks of the unsung (and the same is true even for their second line).

As good as it felt to eliminate the Wings for the second year in a row, there is a very legit question concerning how big an accomplishment that is. The Wings' roster is talented but aging, and they have now failed to get past the first round in four of the last five seasons.

And, finally, the Bolts are frustratingly inconsistent.


But...
...I am temporarily satisfied.

Advancing in the playoffs is always good and I am going to enjoy this until the next round starts. Go Bolts!

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

Actually it was twenty years ago this spring, not today, but I can't let such a minor detail stop me from Sergeant Peppering my headline.

I am talking about the first time the Tampa Bay Lightning made it to the NHL playoffs, and since the race to qualify for this year's playoffs is tight -- with the Bolts defending their Eastern Conference crown, aiming to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for the third time in twelve years and win the Cup for the second time in that span -- I feel driven to welcome the approach of the 2016 playoffs by paying tribute to the scrappy group of guys that generated a major buzz back in 1996.

Some people will claim that in order to understand how special that Lightning team was, you need to be from here. Some might say you need to be from here and be of a certain age. Although I don't believe either claim is necessarily true, I do believe some context is needed, so here it comes.

*     *     *     *     *

When dawn broke on the 1995-96 NHL season, Tampa Bay had for years been one of the biggest laughingstocks among North American sports markets. We were considered losers, and while that label wasn't accurate, it was understandable because the National Football League's Buccaneers were in the middle of their thirteenth straight losing season -- and as if that wasn't bad enough, the twelve immediately preceding years had not been "merely" losing seasons, but double-digit losing seasons.

The Bucs' original owner, Hugh Culverhouse, was a miserly tax cheat tax attorney who never even tried to put a winning product on the field -- and didn't think twice about running Doug Williams out of town in a probably-racist move that arguably ruined Williams's career (although Williams would famously quarterback the Redskins to a Super Bowl victory, that did not occur until after his squabbles with Culverhouse forced him to spend his prime years exiled in the football wilderness by playing in the USFL and then riding the bench in Washington; he only started two games during the Super Bowl season, but received the unexpected nod to start in the playoffs basically because Joe Gibbs, the legendary Redskins coach, had a hunch.)

While our football team had spent most of its existence flopping around like a dying fish on a dock, our efforts to land a Major League Baseball franchise also bore a striking resemblance to a dying fish flopping on a dock. The city of St. Petersburg openly dreamed of attracting MLB starting in the 1970's, and in the 1980's it rolled the dice by building a pricey, lopside-domed stadium on the site of an abandoned gas plant, never mind that MLB had not announced any plans to expand.

After the dome was built, its existence was nakedly exploited by MLB organizations who used it as a means of bribery to get concessions from their own cities. The owners of those teams (in particular the Chicago White Sox and San Francisco Giants) feigned interest in either moving here or selling to new owners who would move them here, and the gambit worked. Tampa Bay was repeatedly spurned at the altar and made to look a fool.

Thankfully, the Lightning arrived on the scene as an NHL expansion team, playing its inaugural game in October 1992 and showing the way to success. The Lightning, affectionately known as the Bolts, demonstrated that success can be attained simply through good old-fashioned grit and determination, regardless of situation. They put the taste of winning back into the mouths of Tampa Bay's put-upon fans, who had not experienced it in years, and from the get-go there was something special between the Bolts and their fans.

*     *     *     *     *

That special something between team and fans had a lot to do with their mutual underdog status.

As soon as this metropolitan area was awarded an NHL franchise, legions of people in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Canada rolled their eyes and thumbed their noses at the idea of a hockey team playing this far south. Edmonton Sun columnist Robert Tychkowski once wrote that those of us from the Bay Area couldn't comprehend hockey because we "wouldn't know snow unless it was shipped in from Colombia." Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star declared that we were too dimwitted to understand the sport and required "Hockey for Dummies edification." The more we proved them wrong, the more unhinged their condescension became.

And, pardon my Francais, but to Hell with them.

The Bolts played their inaugural season on the Florida State Fairgrounds in a building called Expo Hall, which, as you might have guessed, is basically a big auction barn (seating capacity: 10,245). But in their first game, they took on the Chicago Blackhawks, the defending Campbell Conference champs, and crushed them 7-3 with journeyman Chris Kontos scoring four goals. (Comparatively speaking, the NFL's Bucs did not win their first game until the next-to-last game of their second season.)

The team competed well throughout that season and went on to improve in each of the next three.

Though Tampa Bay's roster lacked star power in those early years, its lunch pail determination more than made up for it. Every time you went to a game, you had a legitimate feeling that the team could win. The phrase "Kick Ice" showed up on bumper stickers and window decals all over town, and that kind of moxie quickened the pulse and gave Bay Area sports fans a swagger they hadn't had since 1979.

*     *     *     *     *

When the 1995-96 season began, the Lightning had no player who was considered a premier goal-scorer.

But they did have a fast, undersized centerman named Brian Bradley, who had a heart that exceeded his heft and also had a knack for sniffing out open ice and getting the puck in the net.

They had a tenacious winger named Rob Zamuner, who happened to be one of the best defensive-minded forwards in the game.

They had a fear-inducing enforcer named Rudy Poeschek.

And another one named Enrico Ciccone, who will always hold a special place in the hearts of fans even though he only played one full season with the team -- and even though he was traded away late in the 1995-96 campaign and therefore didn't get to suit up for the Bolts in the playoffs.

Plus, they had a young, entering-his-prime defenseman named Roman Hamrlik, who was born in Czechoslovakia and had become their first-ever draft pick back in '92.

They had a pair of smart, diligent, over-30 veterans that signed with them during the off-season: John Cullen, a former All-Star coming off of a productive year in Pittsburgh; and Brian Bellows, who had just finished a three-year stint with Montreal after spending nine seasons as one of the Minnesota North Stars' fan favorites

The Lightning also had "the kids" -- 20-year-old Chris Gratton and 19-year-old Jason Wiemer -- playing center and showing glimpses of big potential. That pair was being hailed as the foundation of a bright future.

But most importantly, the Lightning had a man named Daren Puppa (pronounced poo-pah). A brick wall of a goaltender from Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Puppa was able to win games all by himself even if the the Bolts were outplayed everywhere else on the ice. Whenever he made a fantastic save, the fans yelled "Puuuuuuuuuuuu-ppa!" Hanging from a club-level section of seating behind the west goal line was a sign declaring that section "The Pupp Deck."

Like I already said, the Bolts played their inaugural 1992-93 season in Expo Hall. However, in their second season they moved to the Thunderdome -- that aforementioned, lopside-domed stadium whose reason for being was to attract Major League Baseball (and which is now known as Tropicana Field, home of MLB's Tampa Bay Rays).

1995-96 was the Bolts' third and final season playing inside the Thunderdome's cavernous confines before moving to their permanent, long-awaited arena in downtown Tampa. And like I have also already said, 1995-96 was the first time they made the playoffs.

*     *     *     *     *

That was back in the days when newspapers were almost always read on paper, rarely online. As the regular season's end drew near, the St. Petersburg Times ran a daily cartoon showing a player in a Lightning jersey, holding his thumb up or down depending on whether the Lightning would qualify for the playoffs if the season were to end that day.

Larry Hirsch called Lightning games on the radio and endeared himself to fans with his adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm. The phrase he yelled every time the Bolts scored -- "Yessir! Yessir!" -- became part of the team's identity and could be heard on ESPN commercials which hyped the NHL as a whole.

At the end of pre-game warm-ups, Alexander Selivanov, a young winger from Moscow, had a routine: He would scoop up a loose puck from the end of the ice where he had been shooting, then pivot around and skate to the other end at full speed and snap the puck into the opposite net. He did it before every home game and the crowd roared each and every time. A little more than a year after the season ended, he married Carrie Esposito, daughter of team founder and Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito, and they went on to have two sons.

Like all hockey seasons -- in fact, all hockey games -- 1995-96 was marked by heart-racing swings of momentum. The Bolts controlled those swings rather than let the swings control them, and they placed themselves in position to qualify for the playoffs as the season entered its final weekend.

Looking back, there were (in my mind) two key points. One was a twelve-game stretch with only one loss between February 15th and March 10th. The other was a 2-1 victory over the hated Florida Panthers on April 10th -- a victory secured when Hamrlik, cracking his stick in the process, blasted a slap shot through the five hole of en fuego goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck.

I was driving southward, on Fourth Street near its intersection with Gandy Boulevard in the city of St. Petersburg, when the news broke over the radio that the Lightning had made the playoffs because the Ottawa Senators had just defeated the New Jersey Devils. No longer did the Lightning have to get either a tie or win the following day -- they were in no matter what, baby!

*     *     *     *     *

The Lightning's opponent in the first round was the top-seeded Philadelphia Flyers, who, thanks to their insufferable boo-bird fans, were reviled by pretty much every North American sports fan not from eastern Pennsylvania or southern Jersey.

The Flyers' #1 seed was more than warranted. Defying logic, their players were both blindingly fast and hulkingly large and their top offensive line -- the so-called "Legion of Doom" comprised of Eric Lindros, John LeClair, and Mikael Renberg -- was arguably the best to lace up skates for any team in the 1990's.

In Game One, Philadelphia's physical superiority seemed even more pronounced than it actually was as they jumped on the Bolts from the beginning and seemed to get every shot to cross the goal line. The Flyers won 7-3 and looked invincible.

But looks do not always equal reality, and the Lightning rose to the occasion in Game Two. Puppa stood strong in net and turned away one assassin shot after another. Selivanov pounced on a third period rebound and snapped it past Philly netminder Ron Hextall to tie the game 1-1. Then, midway through the first overtime, Gratton started a breakaway that ended with Brian Bellows rifling a shot past Hextall to give the Bolts their first-ever post-season victory.

Next came Game Three, when the series shifted to the Thunderdome and the Bolts got to play their first post-season game on home ice. It took place on April 21, 1996, a Sunday afternoon, and the building was crammed to the rafters with what was then the largest crowd ever to attend an NHL playoff game (today it ranks as the second-largest).

In what would later prove to be an ominous sign, Puppa suffered back spasms (a recurring problem throughout his career) that rendered him unable to play, so backup goalie Jeff Reese replaced him in net. Everyone who was a Lightning fan at the time remembers how well Reese played, keeping Philadelphia's snipers enough at bay that his team had a chance to win.

With the Flyers leading 3-1 in the second period and on a power play, Rob Zamuner notched a steal-and-score short-handed goal (which you can see here at the 2:55 mark) to pull the Bolts within 3-2. Later that period, he tied it up with a goal you can see at the 3:30 mark of the same link.

Philadelphia did manage to regain the lead, but not for good. Late in the third period, Bellows tied the game by honing in on a bouncing puck and chopping it into the net. Because of that goal (which is viewable just after the prior link's 4:50 mark) the game went to overtime tied at four.

Then, a mere 2:03 into the extra stanza, Selivanov etched himself an eternal place in Lightning history by anchoring himself just outside the crease, allowing a blocked Brian Bradley shot to land in front, and jamming the puck past Hextall to win the game 5-4. You can see it just after the link's 5:55 mark. The crowd's cheer -- which is not done justice by the audio -- sounded like it would blow the roof off the dome.

The Lightning were in the catbird seat against the favorites, and spirits soared throughout the region.

*     *     *     *     *

In the end, however, fate was not on the Lightning's side.

They played hard against the Flyers for the remainder of the series but struggled to get anything to go behind Hextall -- a bad sign when your own starting goalie, who is also your best player, has been replaced by a backup in your own net. Philly won Game Four here and Game Five there, by identical scores of 4-1, to take a 3-2 series lead.

When things shifted back here for Game Six, a still-hurting Daren Puppa returned to the net in a high character effort to overcome his ailment and rally his team; but unfortunately, it was not in the stars for him to become Tampa Bay's Willis Reed.

As I watched from high above the ice, in the general admission area of the Thunderdome's third deck, the Flyers simply outmanned the Bolts that night and ended the series at 4-2. My brother sat to my right. To my left were a bunch of twentysomethings from Timmins, Ontario, who were on hand to experience their dream of seeing an NHL playoff game in person -- a dream made possible because one of their friends had relocated here and was able to secure tickets. Such was the nature of things back then, in this new-to-the-NHL area where we loved hockey and sought to expand its roots without upheaving them.

There was a sense of disappointment because the Lightning had shown they were good enough to beat those Philly bastards -- only to lose control and drop the series by getting outscored across the last three games.

Nevertheless, the final feeling of that series was one of excitement and optimism. We Lightning fans had always known our team was for real and always known we were a formidable fan base. Now, after the way our team had spooked the Flyers and their obnoxious fandom, nobody could question Tampa Bay's legitimacy.

*     *     *     *     *

Sadly, the team's immediate future proved not to be as bright as it appeared during those heady days.

By bringing in future Hall of Famer Dino Ciccarelli, the franchise demonstrated its commitment to improving and to making an impact on the league. But Puppa was still ailing when the next season opened, and wound up missing 76 of its 82 games, and as it turned out, he never did fully recover. Despite being one of the world's most talented netminders and despite being in his prime when those back spasms sent him to the sidelines during the '96 playoffs, Puppa never made it through another complete season. Though he remained on the roster for four more years, he missed more than 84 percent of the games across that span before deciding to retire.

A year after reaching that '96 post-season, the Bolts were in the thick of the chase to qualify for the 1997 playoffs and John Cullen was their leading points-scorer. But Cullen started battling flu-like symptoms that he couldn't shake, and being a competitor, he hid them from the trainers. His wife, Valerie, decided to go over his head by telling the team about it -- a decision which led to x-rays, which, in turn, revealed that he had a grapefruit-sized tumor in his chest. The tumor proved to be cancerous and he was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Cullen began chemotherapy that was debilitating, and, obviously, missed the remainder of the season. While undergoing treatment, he underwent cardiac arrest and his heart stopped and he briefly died on a hospital gurney. Blessedly, he was revived and ultimately defeated the disease.

After missing the entire 1997-98 season, he returned for the 1998-99 campaign and received a standing ovation when he stepped back on the ice for the first time. However, he chose to retire in November after it became obvious he could not regain his prior form.

Then there is the case of Alexander Selivanov, who, like I mentioned earlier, scored the winner in that epic Game Three and went on to marry Carrie Esposito. On the one hand, it can be said that their case shows nepotism has no place in the NHL's meritocracy, since Alexander's status as the founder's son-in-law did not prevent him from being traded to Edmonton in 1999, after his production declined. On the other hand, their case shows that "none of that shit matters" when you think about the denouement that was to come.

Four Januarys ago, Alexander had been out of the NHL for more than a decade but was still receiving a paycheck to play the game. Specifically, he was playing for a team in the Netherlands while Carrie and their sons were living in Germany. A couple weeks before the end of January 2012, she coughed up blood but did not seek medical attention, and then, on January 30th, she collapsed in their home and died of an abdominal aneurysm.

In the bat of an eye, Alexander Selivanov became a widower at the age of 40, and Nikko and Rocco Selivanov were rendered motherless at the ages of 13 and 9. Carrie's oldest son (Dylan, from a previous marriage) was 19 when her sudden death left him without his mom.

Roman Hamrlik went on to have a remarkably long, 20-season career in the league. But despite his status as history's first Bolt, more than 14 of those seasons were played elsewhere because he was traded to the Oilers midway through the 1997-98 campaign. And as far as production in the offensive zone is concerned, he never came close to matching the 65 points he tallied during that magical 1995-96 operation.

Although Chris Gratton and Jason Wiemer would have decent NHL careers, they fell far short of the stardom so many were predicting for them. In hindsight, those predictions were not warranted from the outset and did nothing but saddle young players with unrealistic expectations.

So, while 1995-96 was a helluva ride by a core group of guys who were easy to like, it turned out to be the highest hill that group would ever climb.

*     *     *     *     *

For the fictional slave Pseudolus, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.

For that first Lightning squad to reach the post-season, Life happened on the way to the world which lay beyond 1996.

Life, with all its vagaries and randomness, knocked that team off its tracks; but in many ways, that fact makes the team's story more inspirational, not less.

John Cullen remains cancer-free. Now 51, he manages his brother's car dealership in Jonesboro, Georgia. This continues a family tradition, since Cullen's father and uncles were car dealers in Canada when he was growing up. He and Valerie are still married and have three daughters: Kennedy, Karlyn, and Kortland (the latter two are twins).

Alexander Selivanov splits his time between here and Russia and Phil Esposito gets to see his grandkids. But Russia consumes most of Selivanov's time because he is one of the coaches of Admiral Vladivostok -- a Kontinental Hockey Legue team based so far in Russia's eastern realms that its arena is near the Korean Peninsula.

Daren Puppa continues to reside in the Tampa Bay Area even though his playing days are years behind him. So too does Brian Bradley.

After finishing his playing career, Jeff Reese served for years as the Lightning's goaltending coach. In that capacity, he got his name engraved on the Stanley Cup when the Bolts won it all in 2004.

Mikael Andersson, the fastest player from that first playoff squad, now works for the Lightning as a scout.

Petr Klima, who was arguably that team's most skilled skater and shooter, now owns several developmental teams for youths in Michigan.

Head Coach Terry Crisp has long since left the coaching world behind. Today he is 72 and works as a TV and radio broadcaster for the Nashville Predators, but he's happy to talk about the years he once spent turning the Tampa Bay Lightning into a winner literally from scratch.

Yes, in the two decades that have passed since that first playoff appearance, the Bolts have fielded teams that achieved much more on the ice. But where Lightning lore is concerned, no squad is more special than that overachieving gang that briefly touched the sun in the spring of 1996.

A une fougueuse

If he had he been born a few centuries earlier, he would have been a coureur des bois -- one of those tough, determined Frenchmen who used birchbark canoes to depart what is now known as Quebec, paddling across thousands of miles of rivers in the wild interior of what is now the United States and Canada, trapping beaver as they went and bartering with the indigenous people that some of us (including me) still refer to as American Indians.

The coureur des bois were daring, and so is he... Their tenacity, like his, far exceeded the average man's... They were strong, and so is he... They defied the odds, and so has he.

Martin St. Louis (pronounced Mar-tan San Lou-ee) was born 40 years ago in Laval, Quebec. He lists at 5'8" and 176 pounds, which does not sound like the body of a professional athlete, but a professional athlete is what he is -- and an exceptional one at that. While St. Louis stands neither tall nor massive, he does stand strong, with thighs that have been likened to tree trunks, and he is possessed with the heart of a lion.

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Playing the game of hockey, St. Louis has always been smaller than those he went up against, and has always refused to let that make a difference. As a kid he led his midget league in scoring, only to be left off of the provincial midget team because of his size.

The most direct route to the NHL is to play in junior leagues, and all the junior teams knew how prolific a scorer he was. Nonetheless, because of his size he received little interest from them.

In order to keep his prospects open, he crossed the border and accepted a hockey scholarship from the University of Vermont. Playing there from 1993 to 1997, he was a two-time finalist for the Hobey Baker Award and set school records for points (267) and assists (176). Those records still stand 18 years after his collegiate days came to an end.

The close-mindedness of hockey scouts was confirmed when a career of that caliber generated almost no interest from NHL clubs. St. Louis was never drafted and the only organization to grant him a tryout (Ottawa) did not take him, so he wound up signing a contract with the minor league Cleveland Lumberjacks of the IHL.

Impressed with his production in Cleveland, the Calgary Flames brought him under contract and assigned him to their AHL affiliate in New Brunswick. Though he eventually cracked the Flames' NHL roster in October 1998, he was used sparingly and they left him exposed in the 2000 NHL Expansion Draft. Then, when he went untaken in that draft, the Flames let him go.

St. Louis was 25 years old and it looked like his NHL career might be over after a grand total of four goals and zero playoff appearances.

*     *     *     *     *

Fortunately for him and all true hockey fans, the Tampa Bay Lightning gave him another chance and he debuted with them on October 6, 2000.

At first St. Louis struggled to find his mojo in the Sunshine State and did not score for weeks; however, he eventually got going and broke into the big time during the 2002-03 season, when he tied for the team lead with 33 goals and added 37 assists. That season's squad won the first division title in franchise history and put the franchise back into the playoffs for the first time in seven years. St. Louis scored seven goals during those playoffs, three of which were game-winners.

The Bolts faced Washington in the opening round and after dropping the first two games on home ice, they won four in a row to advance past the opening round for the first time in team history. St. Louis scored the series-winning goal in triple overtime of Game Six, and you can watch it by going here (though all 44 seconds are worth your time, the play that ended with the winning goal starts at the 00:32 mark).

*     *     *     *     *

If the 2002-03 season was his coming out party, the 2003-04 season was his exclamation point. With 38 goals and 56 assists in the regular season, he rang up 94 overall points to win the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer -- then followed that up with 24 points (9 goals, 15 assists) in the playoffs.

In addition to the Art Ross, St. Louis won the Lester B. Pearson Award for the NHL's most valuable player as determined by a vote of the players, plus the Hart Memorial Trophy for the NHL's most valuable player as determined by a vote of the members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association.

But ah, those playoffs! Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup that year, and it was during the Cup Finals that Martin St. Louis scored the most memorable goal in franchise history. To put the cherry on top, he scored it against the team that had let him go four years earlier.

The Bolts had the best record in the NHL and had home ice advantage for the finals. However, when Game Six started, they were trailing the Calgary Flames three games to two. That game was played in Calgary and the Flames' red-jerseyed fans were deafeningly loud, doing everything they could to tilt the ice in their team's favor so it could become the first Canada-based franchise to win the Cup in 11 years.

When regulation time ended, the game was tied 2-2... Then the Bolts and Flames battled fiercely throughout the first overtime, yet no one scored... Then, 33 seconds into the second overtime, St. Louis pounced on a rebound of Tim Taylor's shot and rifled it into the top of the net to force Game Seven back in Tampa. The Lightning would go on to win Game Seven and secure the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

*     *     *     *     *

Those were the first two consecutive NHL seasons that St. Louis managed to complete in their entirety. He was just shy of his 28th and 29th birthdays when they came to their respective ends, and to put that in perspective, consider that the average age at which an NHL player retires is 28 years and 62 days.

Because those seasons included him winning the Cup and establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with, I am sure he would rank them at the top of his career highlight list. Yet they were "merely" the beginning of his career at hockey's highest level, and over the ensuing decade-plus he made such a mark that he stands a better-than-even chance of being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

St. Louis appeared in six All-Star Games... He won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy three times between 2010 and 2013... For the 2006-07 season, he notched a career-high points total of 102 (43 goals, 59 assists)... For 2009-10, he equaled his earlier Art Ross-winning points total of 94, and in 2010-11 he exceeded it with 99... Then, in 2012-13, a full nine years after he first won the Art Ross, St. Louis led the NHL in scoring and won it again at the age of 37. The only player to have gone longer between his first and final times winning the Art Ross was Wayne Gretzky himself -- yet Gretzky was only 33 when he won it for the last time.

*     *     *     *     *

As far as playing style is concerned, St. Louis is best described as a spark plug. He attacked like the Tasmanian Devil of cartoon fame, never giving up on a play, legs constantly moving like pistons in an internal combustion engine.

For much of his career, well into his thirties, speed was his forte. Opponents' hearts stopped whenever he exploded into open ice with the puck on his stick, for it was no secret that he could snap it wherever he wanted in the blink of an eye. And, although he had a sniper's shot, he also had a "Magic Johnson sense" for knowing where he should pass the puck to set better-positioned teammates up to score.

Despite being undersized, he could fight through checks as good as anyone and never shied away from doling out punishment. Although some claimed he was soft on defense, that is belied by the fact he often played on the penalty kill and racked up 29 short-handed goals.

St. Louis's training regimen and off-ice workouts are the stuff of legend. Well after he became an established star and leader, he continued to train so diligently that former GM Jay Feaster quipped that "Martin St. Louis still thinks he could get cut tomorrow."

His reputation for humility was buttressed not only by his belief that he was "cut-able" but by his interaction with people around town. St. Louis did not seek attention but everyone knew him when they saw him, and he was quick to acknowledge their glances and happy to engage in small talk.

A friend of mine has played for years in one of those adult hockey beer leagues, and it just so happens that the year the Lightning won the Stanley Cup was the same year in which my friend's team won the "Stanley Keg" for the second season in a row. The night they won said trophy, they went out to celebrate and ran into none other than Martin St. Louis himself, and the NHL's scoring leader talked to them about hockey and congratulated them on their victory.

Thousands of similar anecdotes regarding the undersized Quebecker exist around this metropolitan area. Another friend of mine encountered him several times at Panera Bread and has nothing but good things to say about him.

*     *     *     *     *

I have been a sports fan for as many of my 44 years as I can recall, and there is no denying that the relationship between fans and players is more familiar and personal in hockey than it is in the other "big four" sports. Yet when it came to Martin St. Louis and the people in the Tampa Bay area, that relationship felt even more familiar. Like my good friend and former co-worker Brooke said two months ago: "His story was our greatest story."

Simply put, he and the Tampa Bay metropolitan area had things in common. The stiff-minded didn't believe that Martin St. Louis could play NHL hockey, and he proved them wrong in spades. Likewise, the stiff-minded didn't believe that Tampa Bay would support an NHL franchise, and we proved them wrong in spades.

No matter how much he succeeded at every level of the game, the naysayers looked down their noses at him until doing so made them seem ridiculous. Likewise, no matter how much we proved that Tampa Bay is hockey country, the naysayers looked down their noses at us.

At long last, he led our team to a championship that proved the naysayers wrong, and as that championship was won, we cheered exuberantly and took delight in knowing that the naysayers were irritated by our happiness.

In a way that probably won't make sense unless you were here, it felt like he and the fans were united. This sounds strange since he was the one doing the work, but on a psychological level it felt like we were with him in that birchbark canoe, thrilled to stick it to the elite with every dip of the oars. His contract even had a no-trade clause, which seemed to be the ultimate confirmation that he was one of us.

Nobody in these parts bothered to use his full name, or even his correct first name. He was simply "Marty." Walk into any bar in the region and use the name "Marty" in conversation, and even if you never said the words "Lightning" or "hockey," there was a one hundred percent chance that everyone knew you were talking about Martin St. Louis.

Then, after that Stanley Cup championship and all those high-scoring years ... after all the awards mentioned above ... after another deep playoff run that saw the Bolts come within a goal of reaching the Cup finals in 2011 ... after almost 14 calendar years of Martin St. Louis going into battle wearing a Lightning uniform ... after all that, the abject weirdness of the 2013-14 season came a-callin'.

*     *     *     *     *

The Bolts were not a floundering team in 2013-14. They were a talented bunch that spent almost the entire season in the thick of the playoff race, and their roster, while young, overflowed with the kind of potential that suggested they might be able to make a Cup run if only "the kids" could perform with the wisdom of players who had a few more years on them.

Martin St. Louis was the team captain. As such, he took the youngsters under his wing to teach them how to succeed in the National Hockey League. Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat were especially responsive, as they became very productive contributors and ultimately finished second and third in the voting for NHL Rookie of the Year.

When leading scorer Steven Stamkos went down with a grotesquely broken leg, St. Louis put the team on his back and willed them forward. Everyone followed his example and the team kept pace in the playoff chase. With his 39th birthday months away, he continued making crisp assists and slipping pucks into nets.

But when Canada's Olympic roster was announced in mid-season and he was not on it, his reaction, even in public, was infantile. Steve Yzerman was not only the Lightning's general manager, he was also the executive director of Canada's national team, and rumors quickly "escaped" claiming that 1) St. Louis blamed Yzerman for not convincing the rest of the committee to name him to the team, and 2) he therefore felt like he could not be associated with Yzerman.

St. Louis did nothing to quell the rumors once they "escaped" into the international press. Constantly asked about them, all he did was offer pouty-faced remarks that he was "not going to talk about that." In other words, he repeatedly confirmed his self-absorbed discontent without saying the words. Not exactly what a leader is supposed to do.

Eventually, he of the no-trade clause demanded that he be traded, and on top of that, demanded that he be traded specifically to the New York Rangers. Because of the no-trade clause in his contract, he could veto any trade Yzerman worked out with a team other than the Rangers, and he made it clear that he would do that even as he made it clear he did not want to play for the Lightning any more.

Essentially, he held the team that once rescued his career hostage, and in so doing he held the fans who admired him hostage. Again, not exactly what a leader is supposed to do. What must rookies like Johnson, Palat, and Nikita Kucherov have thought when they saw their captain behaving like a child?

Eventually Martin St. Louis got his wish. He was dealt to the Rangers, and when he got to New York, one of the first things he said to the assembled media was that he was excited to finally play "in a big market." It reeked not only of a player wanting to play for a different team, but of a player telling his longtime fans that they weren't good enough for him. It reeked of an entitled prima donna grown a thousand times too big for his britches. In short, it reeked of everything he was not supposed to be, and those of us in the Bay Area took his exit far more personally that we have taken the exit of any other pro athlete who has ever plied his trade in these parts.

*     *     *     *     *

It was -- is -- hard to believe that a man could flush 14 years of goodwill down the crapper over not making an Olympic team that he was unlikely to make in the first place. He had been left off of previous Olympic teams, and in 2014 he was no spring chicken and there were plenty of much younger, equally qualified players available for what he perceived as "his" spot.

Rumors trickled out that St. Louis was using the Olympic matter as a red herring, and I find these rumors to be more compelling than him forcing a trade solely because he felt snubbed.

Some of the rumors held that St. Louis's wife, Heather, had been pressuring him for years to move to New York so she could be closer to family (she is from Connecticut just outside of NYC). These rumors imply that by exploiting the Olympic matter, he protected Heather from a public backlash. I would also add that if this rumor tells the whole story, exploiting the Olympics also protected him from being ridiculed as a vaginal sort of person who can't stand up to his wife.

Other rumors held that he wanted to move to New York because his sons, who are becoming involved in competitive hockey, would not have to travel far from home to face the kind of top-tier competition that will be preferable for them to perfect their skills and garner the most attention from pro scouts and college recruiters.

Both of those rumors make sense and I suspect that there is some truth to both of them. Perhaps the Olympic matter also played some part. Perhaps there were other issues no one has speculated about. And I do believe that he is under no obligation to tell us.

But still. Why give a middle finger to the Lightning and their fans? Why behave in a way that contradicts your entire reputation? After all, that reputation has so much to do with both your current success and your potential future success once your playing days are far behind you.

The question of why? resonates, and gives rise to the question of whether the fans had been taken for a ride all along.

*     *     *     *     *

We, the fans, did move on. We have lives to live, and we accepted the situation as one of those things that sucks but isn't worth losing sleep over.

Or so we thought, until the 2015 playoffs rolled around and the paths of Martin St. Louis and the Tampa Bay Lightning crossed in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Rangers and Bolts met with a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals on the line, which meant it was no regular season game and suddenly the thought of St. Louis's current team advancing at our expense was one of the worst things imaginable.

In Game Two, St. Louis was positioned at the point during a 5-on-3 power play. A pass came to him and when he turned to take it, he slipped and fell to the ice, leaving the puck exposed. Tyler Johnson scooped it up, raced the other way, and scored a short-handed goal that shifted the momentum of the game, which the Lightning wound up winning 6-2. It almost seemed like divine retribution, as if God himself had pushed St. Louis over to teach him a lesson about the wages of pride.

In Game Four, when St. Louis scored 5:08 into the third period, he poured gas on the fire by pointing up toward the Amalie Arena stands and yelling "fuck you guys." The cameras caught it and it didn't require much acumen to read his lips. Admittedly, his gesture might have been intended for the owner's box and his barb meant for Yzerman and Tampa Bay management, not for Tampa Bay fans, but the optics were what they were -- and even if he was cursing management, doesn't that prove that his peevish departure from here really was over something petty and not over more important family issues?

When the series ended with the Lightning defeating the Rangers in seven games, many Tampa Bay fans were just as happy about our team being the one that prevented St. Louis from winning another Stanley Cup than they were about our team keeping itself in the running for the Cup.

*     *     *     *     *

His 2014-15 season was not up to his standards, but was still productive. 21 goals and 31 assists in 74 games, with a plus-minus of +12, is very respectable. Especially for someone his age.

His playoffs, however, were far from good. There were fanned shots galore and he finished at -1 with a paltry 3.1% shooting percentage. Before this year, his worst-ever playoff shooting percentage had been 14.5%. His best-ever is the 28.0% he shot in 2003.

After Game Seven, St. Louis was open about the fact that his production wasn't what he wanted of himself, and wasn't what should inspire the up-against-the-salary-cap Rangers to offer him a new contract when his expired at the end of June. He said he would have to weigh his options about continuing to play in the NHL. It was unlike anything else he had ever said, and even for those of us who harbor bitter feelings about his inglorious departure from Florida, it was hard not to feel for him.

*     *     *     *     *

June ended two days ago, and St. Louis's contract ended along with it.

The New York Rangers, for whom he so wanted to play, made no attempt to re-sign him, even at a reduced rate.

The Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils came calling. But apparently he thought whatever they offered wasn't worth the added wear and tear on his body, or he decided that he didn't want to keep playing when he couldn't hold his own the way he used to.

As I type this sentence it is 10:14 p.m. Eastern Time on July 2, 2015, and Martin St. Louis announced his retirement earlier today.

Part of me is filled with schadenfreude. That part of me feels happy that he did not win a championship with another team.

Part of me is filled with regret. That part of me feels sorry to see him go, because he was one for the ages and was extremely good for the game; and, let's face it, my team would not have become a champion without him.

His statement this morning said this: I have been blessed to play for 16 years in the NHL, it has been an amazing ride. I would like to thank the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers organizations and owners for providing me the opportunity to play the sport I love for so many years. I could never have played for so long or accomplished all that I have without the unwavering love and support from my wife, Heather, our three sons, Ryan, Lucas, and Mason, and my parents.

There is decency in those words, and perhaps an outstretched hand.

And I believe they are his own words, not those of a publicist or sports agent. After all, they don't bother to thank the Flames organization that gave up on him.

I don't know what to say Marty, and I know I am not alone when it comes to having mixed emotions tonight, but I do know it's unfair to ignore 14 years of excellence and exceedingly fond memories all because of a few months of rancor.

You succeeded in your sport because you are what you Francophones would refer to as A une fougueuse -- a feisty one -- and for that I am grateful.

Merci pour les souvenirs.