The NCAA Frozen Four tournament and several major junior hockey leagues have all entered the postseason, and the Tampa Bay Lightning have a handful of players on teams that will be seeing some of this playoff action. For an organization that has taken pride in its recent playoff success, having prospects appear in these games helps their development.
Most pundits feel that the Lightning’s prospect pool lacks high-end impact players and the depth that could help fill the lineup over the next few years. This makes it even more critical that the prospects they have to get as much experience and development as necessary to overcome these issues, and participating in games of this nature will help them down the road.
Gabriel Szturc
The 20-year-old became one of the organization’s newest prospects when the team signed him on March 2 to a three-year NHL contract covering the 2024-25 through 2026-27 seasons. Gabriel Szturc is currently the captain of the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League and had scored 83 points in 62 games this season before the Rockets playoff series against the Wenatchee Wild. He is in his third season with the Rockets and has accumulated 67 goals and 187 points in 176 career games with the squad, plus an additional two goals and three points in nine playoff contests.
Szturc is not a stranger to the big stage, having competed for Czechia at the IIHF World Junior Championship the past two seasons. In 2023, he helped lead Czechia to a silver medal after notching five goals and eight points in seven contests, ranking second on his team for goals and tied for second in scoring.
Isaac Howard
The Lightning’s first-round pick in 2022 helped his Michigan State Spartans defeat the Michigan Wolverines 5-4 in the Big Ten championship at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing on Saturday, March 23. Before the postseason, Isaac Howard had scored 34 points in 33 games to help lead the Spartans as the fourth seed heading into the NCAA tournament on Friday (March 29) against the Western Michigan Broncos.
Howard came off a very successful performance at the most recent World Juniors, helping to lead Team USA to a gold medal. He skated on a line with top Chicago Blackhawks prospect Frank Nazar, which helped him become one of the tournament’s leading goal scorers. He had two assists in the Spartans’ overtime victory over the Broncos in the first round (March 29).
Roman Schmidt
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