It has been a year of up and downs for the Tampa Lightning in the first year of the Elite Hockey Sim league.  The team saw impressive performances from key players like Jordan Eberle, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Pietrangelo and T.J. Brodie.  Young stud, Zemgus Girgensons also had a solid and encouraging season with 27 points in 48 games and will be leaned on heavily next year when Tampa Bay fans are hoping that the near miss of the playoffs this year wont exist.

Throughout the year, GM Hill has made a few changes that have brought in some youth and draft picks while getting rid of some of the older players on the team.  Nick Bjugstad and Chris Stewart were brought in to provide some scoring to the top-6 thats already included Eberle, Gallagher, Girgensons and up and coming star in Filip Forsberg.

The Lightning have a lot of depth that will prove to valuable in upcoming seasons.  With a bottom-6 including Cody Hodgson, Cody Eakin, Marcus Foligno, Shawn Matthias and Michael Bournival, opposing teams will have a hard time creating offence for yewars to come.

The biggest question mark will be if goaltender Martin Jones can take another step forward into a starting number 1 goaltender in this league.  Josh Harding is solid but his best days are behind him and Jack Campbell proved nothing other then that he is inconsistent at best and needs more seasoning before he is a real contender to the number 1 job.

With 4 picks in the first 3 rounds, a couple solid proespects will join the likes of Anthony Duclair, Tim Bozon and Mike Matheson.  Those 3 players represent a solid future for the Lightning that has fans excited for the summer to finish and move onto the new season.