Tampa Bay Lightning: Top 3 lessons teams can learn from the champions
Believe In Your Stars
Though Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois was a finalist for the General Manager of the Year award, he didn’t win. Rather, it was Lou Lamoriello of the New York Islanders who won. While Lou did a great job building a team that made it to the Eastern Conference Final, I think BriseBois should have won.
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Why? Because he did what so many general managers fail to do. BriseBois trusted his stars after their horrific loss to the Blue Jackets in 2019. He had every reason to want to blow things up. If BriseBois had fired Jon Cooper, who would have blamed him?
Instead, the rookie general manager showed patience. He believed in his stars. BriseBois believed in Steven Stamkos, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, and Brayden Point. Instead of subtracting from his core, he supplemented his core by tinkering with the roster. He trusted his head coach, who has won at every level.
It’s so easy to blame the stars of a team when things go bad. Nobody blames the bottom-six forward who doesn’t produce. Oh no, it’s always the fault of the star who played great but couldn’t carry his team.
It’s brave to trust your team. The Lightning rewarded BriseBois for his trust in them. Back in 2017, Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan trusted his talented team. A year later, they rewarded him. Heck, the St. Louis Blues were tied with the Ottawa Senators for the fewest points in the league on Jan. 1, 2019. Five months later, they were champions. When you have great players, you need to believe in them.