Here’s every NHL team’s player to watch break out this year
By Paul Grant
Tampa Bay Lightning: Anthony Cirelli
The Lightning are a lot like the Penguins in that they somehow, even with limits pushed on salary cap space and low draft picks brought on by repeated success, find ways to bring in new and relatively unheralded blood every season that somehow makes a difference. This smooth progression has seen the rise of Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Alex Killorn, among others.
This season, Anthony Cirelli looks to be next in line. A third-round pick in 2015, Cirelli is penciled in to be the third-line center between Yanni Gourde and Killorn which, in coach Jon Cooper’s egalitarian ice-time scheme, means he’s going over the boards every third change.
And Cirelli, if he continues to develop as he’s shown – he had 5 goals and 6 assists over 13:14 per night in an 18-game audition last season – is Cooper’s kind of player: good in the neutral zone, a good skater and skilled with his stick at both ends of the ice.
At 21, he’s got lots of time ahead of him to add weight and confidence, but this promises to be the season when he starts putting the pieces together to break through as a bona fide NHLer.