Tampa Bay Lightning: Tyler Johnson Set To Play In 200th NHL Game
Tampa Bay Lightning center Tyler Johnson is set to play in his 200th career NHL game tonight at the Scotiabank Saddledome against the Calgary Flames.
There is no denying tonight is an important game for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Despite all of the drama the Lightning have been forced to deal with over the course of the last 24 hours, the Tampa Bay Lightning has started to find some chemistry once again as many of the players who have been sitting on the injured list have started to make their way back to the Lightning lineup.
While this is an important game for the Tampa Bay Lightning as a whole, there is one Lightning player in particular who will also be aggressively searching for a win tonight in Calgary. Tampa Bay Lightning center Tyler Johnson will be playing in his 200th career National Hockey League game. Each and every one of these 200 games have been as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Tyler Johnson has been one of the most undervalued forwards on the team. Much like former Tampa Bay Lightning captain Martin St. Louis, he has spent most of his career being told he was too small to play hockey and he didn’t really have the physicality it takes to make it in the NHL. Also like St. Louis, Johnson came into the game as an undrafted player.
Despite the opinions of other people in the National Hockey League, there was one man who believed Tyler Johnson could be a top player in the game. In March of 2011, Tampa Bay Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman signed the young Spokane native to a three-year entry-level contract.
Ever since the moment he hit the ice, Johnson has proved he has what it takes to play at the highest levels of the game. Tyler Johnson was a key member of the Norfolk Admirals team that won the Calder Cup, the American Hockey League equivalent of the Stanley Cup.
In the 2012-13 season, Tyler Johnson would lead the AHL in goals scored, and would ultimately be awarded the Les Cunningham Award for the league’s most valuable player. This would be the first of many awards and distinctions Johnson would earn over the course of his career.
Tyler Johnson made his NHL debut on March 14, 2012 as the Tampa Bay Lightning took on the New York Islanders at the then-Tampa Bay Times Forum. Johnson would only play in 14 games in the 2012-13 season with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the time he spent on the main roster definitely made an impact on the coaching staff here in Tampa Bay.
The next season, Johnson would spend his first full season on the Tampa Bay Lightning’s main roster. This is when Tyler Johnson would definitely show the National Hockey League what he is capable of. In the 2013-14 season, Johnson played in all 82 games with the Bolts. In that amount of time, he would score 24 goals and 26 assists for a total of 50 points.
His efforts, along with his partner-in-crime Ondrej Palat, would see the two young forwards being nominated for the Calder Memorial Trophy at the NHL Awards for Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, that distinction would ultimately be awarded to Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon.
Tyler Johnson’s star had only begun to rise in the 2013-14 season. In the 2014-15 season, Johnson would take things to an all-new level. In the 77 games he played with the Bolts last season, Johnson would score 29 goals and 43 assists for a total of 72 points. Johnson’s star presence didn’t end along with the regular season. In the 26 games the Lightning played in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Johnson scored 13 goals and 10 assists for a total of 23 points.
While Tyler Johnson has been forced to miss quite a bit of time this season thanks to a nagging injury, Johnson has wasted no time in getting back to work. So far this season, he’s scored four goals and seven assists for a total of 11 points. This may not seem like a lot now, but there is still plenty of hockey left in the season, and more than adequate time for Johnson to get his numbers to the level the Tampa Bay Lightning fans have become accustomed to.
As we said before, tonight is a very important game for the Tampa Bay Lightning. The halfway point in the season is right around the corner, and the two points that come with every victory become more and more important as the days wear on.
A victory in Calgary tonight could set the Tampa Bay Lightning on the path they need to be on in order to find themselves in a comfortable position as the end of the season. The good news is, Tampa Bay Lightning fans don’t have long to wait until the puck drops in Calgary and all the action kicks into high gear.
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