Believe it or not, it’s that time of year once again. It’s time for us, with the help of you, to rank the younglings in the Tampa Bay Lightning organization. While the national media rightfully ranks the Lightning prospects towards the bottom of the league (those banners came at the cost of a highly-ranked farm system), there is still some NHL talent in the depths of the organization and it’s time for us to figure out who is among the best.
Unlike last year, we will be bringing back the readers’ portion of the rankings. We’ll be using Google Forms for the rankings, and while it isn’t the cleanest method, it is the one that will require the least amount of work up front and on the back-end to calculate the rankings. The writers portion of the survey will be handled by myself and a panel of former/semi-current contributes and whoever else in the industry I can convince to partake. We’ll run the readers poll for a week (today through Friday) and then use the weekend to calculate the numbers. After that, we’ll release the rankings day-by-day until we get to number one, which should run us right into training camp.
The link to vote is here:
Please vote just once!
As a reminder, here is how last year’s rankings turned out. Four of the players on the rankings are no longer eligible (the reasons are listed next to their name):
| 1 | Isaac Howard | |
| 2 | Gage Goncalves | |
| 3 | Hugo Alnefelt | |
| 4 | Ethan Gauthier | |
| 5 | Gabriel Fortier | |
| 6 | Lucas Edmonds | |
| 7 | Dylan Duke | |
| 8 | Jack Thompson | Traded |
| 9 | Niko Huuhtanen | |
| 10 | Jack Finley | |
| 11 | Declan Carlile | |
| 12 | Felix Robert | Aged Out/ Not in the Organization |
| 13 | Emil Lilleberg | |
| 14 | Eamon Powell | Draft Rights not retained |
| 15 | Max Groshev | |
| 16 | Roman Schmidt | |
| 17 | Jayson Shaugabay | |
| 18 | Daniil Pylenkov | |
| 19 | Max Crozier | |
| 20 | Klavs Veinbergs | |
| 21 | Jaydon Dureau | |
| 22 | Alex Gagne | |
| 23 | Dyllan Gill | |
| 24 | Connor Kurth | |
| 25 | Nick Malik | Draft Rights not retained |
For eligibility, the player had to be under 25 years-old as of October 1, 2024 and the Lightning have to have rights to them. With the Lightning electing not to sign Eamon Powell, McKade Webster, or Nick Capone, those three players are no longer eligible.
Will the addition of Conor Geekie affect the top of the charts or will Ike Howard become the third player in a row to go back-to-back number one (Mikhail Sergachev and Brayden Point did it previously)? Will anyone in the 2024 draft class crack the top 10? Will Max Groshev finish 15th for the fifth year in a row? You can help answer all of these questions and more.
There will be a comment field available on the survey for you to explain your top pick, or add any comment about the group that you would like (keep it clean). We may feature a few comments in the posts, so feel free to sound off (in a respectful, coherent manner).
It’s always fun to see where the writers and readers differ and to see which players skyrocket, and conversely, plummet, from year-to-year. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!
