5 random players you forgot were on the Tampa Bay Lightning
By Al Daniel
Tampa Bay Lightning: Rich Sutter
Two of the seven NHL teams to dress Sutter never got a point out of him. One of them was the team that drafted him 10th overall in 1982, then sent him across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania before he was a certified staple in The Show.
The other one did not even exist until a decade after Sutter’s selection. When that club finally got him, he was decisively declining.
At the start of the two-way forward’s career, the Pittsburgh Penguins called him up for a combined nine games over parts of two seasons. Then — after 11 productive years in Philadelphia, Vancouver, St. Louis, and Chicago — Sutter went to the Lightning for four contests in the middle of a three-team, lockout-delayed 1994-95 campaign.
In each of the nine years before his brief Tampa tenure, Sutter posted at least 20 points, and once 42. One year after the Canucks sent him to St. Louis down the 1990 stretch, he earned a few votes for the Selke Trophy.
And for the balance of his time with the Blues plus a full 1993-94 season in Chicago, he kept crossing the 20-point plateau.
But coming out of the work stoppage, he failed to produce in 15 more appearances with the Blackhawks. In turn, he was sent to the Lightning, where he remained unproductive, was scratched for five out of nine possible games, and ultimately stuck for exactly three weeks.
On March 13, 1995, Tampa sent Sutter to the Maple Leafs for cash. With Toronto, he saw the plurality of his action over his last NHL season, chipping in three helpers over 18 regular season games, then dressing for four playoff contests.
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