I know what you’re asking… what’s this? This is us having some fun with data and trivia. Today, we’ll take the all time Tampa Bay Lightning players list and we’ll be selecting the All-Province Teams! We’ll have four teams to fill out; Team Quebec, Team Ontario, Team British Columbia/Alberta/Manitoba/Saskatchewan a.k.a. Team BCAMS, and Team Other. Let’s just pretend these teams are going to battle it out in a 3v3 All-Star Game style tournament. Who do you think wins? Share in the comments of who you think wins and why!
The rules are simple. There are no rules. Well, there is one rule. We’ll be using their birth place/province as indicated by NHL.com. Decisions will be based solely on my own discretion. If you wish to rebut my picks, you’re welcome to do so in the comment section and make your own picks. Now let’s get on with it!
Team Quebec
Forwards: Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Yanni Gourde, Jonathan Drouin, Denis Savard, Simon Gagne, Alex Tanguay, Jonathan Marchessault, Stephane Richer
Defense: Marc-Andre Bergeron, Mark Barberio, Marc Bergevin
Goaltender: Louis Domingue
Team Quebec features some of the best players to ever don the Lightning uniform in Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier. You’ve also got current Lightning forward Yanni Gourde to give them an assist. After them, you have some of the “short timers” with the Lightning. Denis Savard only played 105 games for the Lightning over parts of two seasons, but he is a Hall of Famer with 1,338 points to his name. Gagne, Tanguay, and Richer weren’t with the Lightning for long either, but they had fantastic careers elsewhere.
The defense is a bit thinner though. Bergevin played over 1,000 games in the league, but he is from the mold of the very old school defensemen on the 80s and 90s. Bergeron though is more of a new school defenseman, even though he was doing it before it was cool to be a small, mobile defenseman with a good shot. Barberio has been a tweener in his NHL career, but he’d still be fun to watch in this three-on-three tournament.
Louis Domingue is easily the best goaltender available for Team Quebec.
Team Ontario
Forwards: Steven Stamkos, Brian Bradley, Chris Gratton, Rob Zamuner, Dave Andreychuk, Dino Ciccarelli, John Cullen, Cory Stillman, Anthony Cirelli
Defensemen: Dan Boyle, Jassen Cullimore, Adrian Aucoin
Goaltender: Dwayne Roloson
Once again with Team Ontario, you get some of the biggest names that have ever played for the Lightning. Andreychuk and Ciccarelli are both Hall of Famers. I gave Cirelli the nod over a few other players that could have gone in here just because I wanted to have another current Lightning player to go with Stamkos.
Dan Boyle is one of the two greatest defensemen to ever play for the Lightning along with Victor Hedman. Cullimore is a classic. Aucoin though only played 26 games for the Lightning. Not long ago there was a game going around on Twitter. It was basically make a line-up for your favorite team. The player’s cost was their total points scored on another team minus the number of games played on your team. Aucoin was a popular pick because he scored so much away from the Lightning and played so little with the Lightning.
The goaltending here was actually harder to pick. I took Roloson simply because we made it to the Eastern Conference Final with him. The other options were Mike Smith, Kevin Weekes, Curtis McElhinney, and Daren Puppa.
Team BCAMS
Forwards: Brayden Point, Mark Recchi, Wendel Clark, Darcy Tucker, Chris Kunitz, Daymond Langkow, Rob DiMaio, Mile Sillinger, Jason Wiemer
Defensemen: Darryl Sydor, Eric Brewer, Braydon Coburn
Goaltender: Dan Ellis
Hey look, another current Lightning player leading the way in Brayden Point. There’s also a lot of other recognizable names here, even though some of them didn’t play much for Tampa Bay like Clark, Tucker, and Recchi. But we have added yet another Hall of Famer to the tournament with Recchi’s selection.
On defense, we get our first current Bolt in Coburn as he beat out a few other similar players for the third spot. Sydor and Brewer were clearly above the rest of the group. Dan Ellis was the only goaltender eligible for Team BCAMS that I noticed having a almost winning record in his career. At least he should be fun.
Team Other
Forwards: Brad Richards, Alex Killorn, Teddy Purcell, Gerard Gallant, Paul Ysebaert, Cedric Paquette, Tim Taylor, Cory Conacher, Dominic Moore
Defensemen: Randy Jones, Cory Cross, Brad Lukowich
Goaltender: Wendell Young
So, it turns out that the Lightning have not had a lot of players that have come from the Maritime provinces and the other provinces and territories from around Canada. We have only six of the 13 players actually from those provinces. Richards, Killorn, and Purcell were the easy choices coming from the coast. Gerard Gallant was also from Price Edward Island. After that, it got sketchy with players that barely played in the NHL, so we went back to the rest of Canada to fill out the forwards with some names we left off earlier.
On defense, Randy Jones from New Brunswick was one of only two defensemen initially eligible for Team Other. He played 365 games in his career with 105 points which honestly isn’t too bad for an undrafted Canadian that went the NCAA route. The other defenseman only played five games in the NHL. So Cross and Lukowich get to pick up the slack.
Wendell Young was fortunately available to us and comes from Nova Scotia. He was the only goaltender eligible, so he was the best option for Team Other in net.
Poll
With the teams set, tell us who you think wins this tournament and let us know if you would have made any different selections in the comments.
Who wins this tournament?
| Team Quebec | 12 |
| Team Ontario | 8 |
| Team BCAMS | 1 |
| Team Other | 1 |
