Tampa Bay Lightning Year In Review: Tyler Johnson

Before we turn our eyes to the 2015-16 season, let’s take a look back at the amazing season had by Tampa Bay Lightning center Tyler Johnson.

When the 2014-15 season started, we knew that there would be at least one player on the Tampa Bay Lightning roster who would stand out among the rest and really step up to the plate, or goal as it is in hockey.

Usually, this is where we would start in about Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos and what an amazing season he had. While Stamkos did have a pretty spectacular season, the one player who really stood out was Tyler Johnson.

Tyler Johnson had just come off of a pretty amazing rookie season that saw both Johnson and his partner-in-crime Ondrej Palat nominated for the Calder Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the National Hockey League’s rookie of the year.

Unfortunately for Johnson and Palat, the award would ultimately go to Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, but that took absolutely nothing away from their spectacular rookie season. Let’s be real…they’ll always be the winners to Tampa Bay Lightning fans.

The soon-to-be twenty five year old Spokane native played in 77 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning last season. Unfortunately, a couple of minor injuries and illnesses kept him from playing a full 82 game season. Still, in that amount of time, Johnson was able to score 29 goals and 43 assists for a regular season total of 72 points to accompany a whopping plus-33 rating.

Johnson’s playmaking ability and his player rating definitely put him on the radar for the rest of the National Hockey League. At the end of the regular season, Johnson found himself in third place in the National Hockey League in plus-minus rating. Interestingly enough, surrounding him on both sides are his two linemates Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat respectively.

Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any better for Tyler Johnson, the post season came along. Johnson took off like a shot from the minute the post season started. In the Lightning’s series against the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Johnson scored 6 goals and 1 assist for a total of 7 points.

History would repeat itself once again when Tyler Johnson would bring home five points in the next round against the Montreal Canadiens. This time Johnson’s production would come by means of 2 goals and 3 assists.

Johnson’s stats would only improve as we headed into the Eastern Conference Finals again King Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers. Johnson would score 4 goals and 5 assists for a total of 9 points. Unfortunately, this is where things started to take a downtrend for the young superstar.

At some point in the early games in the Stanley Cup Finals, it was plain to see that there was something wrong with Tyler Johnson. Despite being one of the fiercest competitors in the faceoff circle, Johnson had stopped taking faceoffs altogether and the goal scoring phenom we had seen earlier in the playoffs started to fade off into the distance.

After the Stanley Cup Finals had ended, the news came out the Tyler Johnson had suffered a broken wrist in the early games in the series and that he continued to play through the pain. If that doesn’t signify the heart of a lion, we don’t know what does.

Johnson ended the postseason tied with Chicago Blackhawks right wing Patrick Kane for the most points in the National Hockey League. Johnson finished 2 goals ahead of Kane, taking the top spot in the league in terms of goals scored.

During the course of the postseason, Tyler Johnson became the first player in Tampa Bay Lightning history to score a hat trick in the playoffs. He eventually surpassed former Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Ruslan Fedotenko and center Brad Richards for the most post-season goals in Tampa Bay Lightning history.

We don’t know about you, but we have a strong feeling that Tampa Bay Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman will be looking to keep Johnson in a Lightning jersey for the long haul. Thankfully, that is a bridge we won’t have to cross until the completion of the 2016-17 season.

While the future is never certain, Johnson seems poised to continue his goal scoring and playmaking ways into the 2015-16 season. Thankfully, he will not be in need of surgery to repair the injury to his wrist and should be in good shape and ready to go when training camp kicks off.

What are you most excited about in the 2015-16 season? How many goals do you think Tyler Johnson will be able to register in the upcoming season? Could we be looking at a future Rocket Richard winner in Tyler Johnson? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Next: Tampa Bay Lightning: Who Will Be The Toughest Competition Next Season?

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