Tampa Bay Lightning Report Cards: Forwards

#16 Teddy Purcell

My 2013/2014 Forecast: Thrives on consistency, 25 goals, 65 points. Possible career year. (Still might be traded.)

GP: 81 G: 12 A: 30 Pts: 42 +/-: -3 PIM: 14

Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Boy, was I wrong with my prediction about Teddy Purcell. If you’re looking at Purcell’s 42 points and thinking, “well, it was bad, but it could have been worse…” you’re wrong. It was about as bad as it could have been. To be honest, I’m not sure how Purcell wound up with 42 points, because he only earned about 10-15 of them. My only conclusion is they must have been some of the most pedestrian points in the history of hockey, and this while benefiting from significant icetime with Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, and, mostly, with Valtteri Filppula. Even mid-year, when Purcell was putting up decent numbers, his play, to anyone paying attention, was at best average.

Purcell is the epitome of a soft, perimeter player. His go-to move is skating the puck over opposition’s blue line and then skating it directly out of trouble, into the boards, thus doing his opponents’ job for them and effectively neutralizing himself. We saw it over and over.

What’s worse, Purcell was something of a chemistry killer on the scoring lines. Whenever we saw him removed from a line, that line seemed to improve almost immediately. Valtteri Filppula, when unchained from Purcell, played his best hockey of the season.

So why was Purcell given premium minutes right until the bitter end? My own belief is the Lightning are trying to maintain as much of his trade value as possible, similar to what it would appear they were doing with Ryan Malone.

Grade: F

Looking Ahead: Teddy Purcell is no longer a fit with the Tampa Bay Lightning. For that reason alone, my personal hope is that he’s moved in the off-season, and to be quite honest I don’t think the return matters. The important thing is we won’t have him in our top-six anymore. Is that harsh? Of course it’s harsh. But watching Purcell game-in and game-out, it got to a point where you actually had to question his effort rather than his skill. And that’s a problem. He doesn’t bring enough intangibles and it’s been a long time since he’s brought any real threat to score. It’s time to part ways and hope he has success elsewhere.