The Tampa Bay Lightning have announced the signing of 21-year-old center Dylan Duke to a three-year entry-level contract. The contract will begin with the 2024-25 season and Duke has also signed an Amateur Try Out agreement with the Syracuse Crunch for this season so that he can join the Crunch on their playoff run.
Duke was a 4th-round selection, 126th overall by the Lightning in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. He’s listed at 5’10” and 181 pounds and is a left-shot centerman. Duke has spent the past three seasons with the power house University of Michigan recording 54 goals and 100 points in 123 career games at the NCAA level. As a freshman, Duke produced 10 goals and 19 points in 41 games on the third line on a team stacked with NHL draft picks, including forwards Matty Beniers, Brendan Bisson, Thomas Bordeleau, Kent Johnson, Mackie Samoskevich, and John Beecher and defensemen Luke Hughes , Owen Power, and Nick Blankenburg who have already made their NHL debuts.
With a good chunk of that talent moving on after Duke’s freshman season, he moved up into the top six for Michigan,recording 18 goals and 32 points in 41 games as a sophomore and 26 goals and 49 points in 41 games this season as a junior. The Strongville, Ohio native has won the Big 10 Championship twice with Michigan and appeared in the Frozen Four all three seasons.
Duke was also named to Team USA for the 2023 World Junior Championships where he scored a goal and four points in seven games winning a Bronze Medal. He also earned a Silver Medal in 2019-20 with Team USA at the U17 World Hockey Challenge and represented Team USA in the 2021 U18 World Junior Championship where he scored three goals and four points in 5 games.
Duke comes from a hockey family. His father Steve played four years of NCAA hockey at Western Michigan University before playing parts of four seasons of professional hockey mostly in the ECHL. Duke’s younger brother Tyler is a defenseman that transferred to Michigan this season after playing one year at Ohio State. His uncle Jeff Rucinski also played at Western Michigan University and parts of four seasons of professional hockey mostly in the ECHL and IHL.
On the ice, Duke is a promising forward prospect for the Lightning. While he has played center throughout his development and could play center in the AHL, he is more likely to find a place as a winger at the NHL level. Duke is a net front goal scorer and finds his way into the dirty areas of the ice. He has good hands and hockey sense that allow him to get into position for deflections. While some pre-draft scouting reports viewed his passing as his better attribute, he scored more goals than assists at the NCAA level. He ranked seventh in our Top 25 Players Under 25 for the Lightning. .
Duke is not likely to be a play driver by himself and won’t be able to carry teammates, but has the hallmarks of being a solid complementary winger on the third line that provides depth scoring with second power play potential. There’s some potential that he can further develop into a second-line winger if he can continue to improve his transition game and defense to help him drive play better, but that is a less likely outcome.
For the Crunch, he should fit in perfectly into their top six right away to provide more scoring punch as the Crunch finish out the regular season and go into the playoffs. The Crunch lost some scoring at the top of their line-up when Gabriel Dumont was injured. Duke could find himself playing alongside Gage Goncalves who has had a solid year as a set-up man at center recording a Crunch leading 44 assists.
Going into next season, Duke could be a dark horse to make the NHL out of camp or be a call-up at some point during the season if the Lightning need a third liner due to injury. He’ll likely need some more seasoning and development time in the AHL before he’s ready to make the full time jump to the NHL.
