32. Tampa Bay Lightning – 56

Top 15 Prospects

Individual Breakdown:

The Lightning rank dead last after trading away one of their top prospects in Jack Thompson. While they lack quality prospects, they have slightly more depth than the Islanders as a total of 23 prospects received a rank inside the top 15. Isaac Howard is the consensus top prospect scoring high water marks of eight from Peter and Mark, with a low score of five from Victor. The big Norwegian Emil Martinsen Lilleberg sneaks in at the 15^th ranked prospect despite playing in NHL games this season. Only Mark scored him with a generous 5.5 score. He has very limited offensive potential but does offer some sneaky good value in deep, deep, deep leagues with some value on a ELC cap hit and a good source of hits and blocks (78 hits and 29 blocks in 27 games)

Team Overview

The Tampa Bay Lightning may rank dead last last this year, but they do have two recent Stanley Cup Championships as a result of trading away picks and prospects. Tampa has done a tremendous job of supplementing their prospect pool with late round selections and free agent signings over the years. Going back about five years the Lightning have had between two to five players play over 100 NHL games from the Draft between the 2007 and 2017 drafts. That is incredible scouting and player development.

They will need to continue to rely on late picks and free agent prospect signings to feed the pipeline. Their first pick in the 2024 Draft is in the third round, and they have a fifth, sixth and three seventh round picks as well.

The top five or six prospects in the system are fantasy relevant in deep leagues, but there is a sharp drop off beyond that. 14^th ranked Lucas Edmonds has a slightly inflated Fantrax roster number at 4%, likely a result of his lofty production in the OHL, however his transition to the AHL has been underwhelming and it is time to move on from that player if you are part of the 4% that rosters him.