Bolt Prospects would like to announce the release of its 2006-2007 Midterm Rankings for prospects in the Lightning organization. There have been multiple changes since the Preliminary Rankings we released in October, most notably a new top prospect in the organization, AHL All-Star Karri Ramo, and the graduation of top ten prospect Nick Tarnasky who played his 41st NHL game of the season just this past weekend. Multiple prospects also managed to crack the rankings for the first time by virtue of their play so far this season.

Just a quick reminder on how we differentiate between "alumni", "prospect" and "overage prospect". Any player who plays 41 games or more at the NHL level in any single season or 82 or more total career NHL games will be considered graduated and will be moved to the "Bolt Prospects Alumni" section of the prospects page. With Tarnasky's full-time promotion to the NHL and prior graduations by Doug Janik and Eric Perrin, the alumni list has now grown to six players over the span of the past year and a half since we first put up the prospects page and profile content. Any player under the age of 24 on opening night of the 2006-2007 season who hasn't met the criteria for graduation is considered a "prospect" and is elligible for our rankings. Any player 24 or older who has not yet met the criteria for graduation is considered an "overage prospect" and is not elligible to make the list. In addition, with Johan Holmqvist on track for graduation this season, we've adopted new, but similar, rules for goaltenders whereby graduation will occur upon the 30th decision of any single NHL season or the 41st career NHL decision. For anyone wondering, Holmqvist has already earned 23 decisions this season (with a 14-9-0 record).

With all the legal disclaimers out of the way, here are the 2006-2007 Bolt Prospects Midterm Rankings which can also be found on our prospects page.

Hockey's Future finally released their first organizational rankings for the year. Ordinarilly finishing 27th out of 30 teams would be a cause for concern, but given Hockey's Future's history of blindly ranking the Lightning dead last out of bias (their Online Editor is a Thrashers fan with an agenda) without doing a lick of research and then regurgitating the same organizational strengths and weaknesses Chad and I wrote when we were at HF some 3-4 years ago, finishing 27th might as well be 17th.

That's why it's hard, from my perspective, to see rankings like these and not crack a big smirk.

The Bolt Prospects staff has completed it's evaluation of the Lightning organization's prospects. The rankings take into account how the players performed last season, their Lightning prospect and Traverse City play, how well they did at Lightning training camp and in exhibition games, as well as their performance at Springfield Falcons camp and in AHL exhibition games. We also factor in a player's potential upside as well as their NHL readiness in reaching our decisions. One note: due to his age, Morgan Cey is now classified as an "Overage Prospect" by Bolt Prospects criteria and is not elligible for the Top-25 Rankings. Any player 24 years of age or older on opening night, October 5th, 2006, who has not already graduated as an NHLer is an "Overage Prospect". For skaters, graduation occurs when a player either A.) plays 41 NHL games in a single season or B.) reaches 82 NHL games in their career. With Johan Holmqvist as the Lightning's backup entering the season, Bolt Prospects is establishing graduation criteria for goaltenders for the first time. For goaltenders, graduation occurs when a player either A.) has 30 decisions in a single season or B.) reaches 41 decisions in their NHL career.

Final Lightning Traverse City Statistics:
Blair Jones 2-4-6
Radek Smolenak 3-2-5
David Desharnais* 0-4-4
Marek Bartanus 2-1-3
Marek Kvapil 1-2-3
Dane Crowley 0-3-3
Justin Keller 2-0-2
Zbynek Hrdel 1-1-2
Maxime Boisclair* 1-1-2
Todd Griffith* 1-0-1
Chris Lawrence 1-0-1
Torrie Wheat* 1-0-1
PJ Atherton* 0-1-1
Vladimir Mihalik 0-1-1
Geoff Waugh* 0-1-1
Brian Woolger* 0-1-1
Clayton Barthel* 0-0-0
Travis Fuller* 0-0-0
Ryan Gibbons* 0-0-0
Stanislav Lascek 0-0-0
Andy Rogers 0-0-0
Matt Smaby 0-0-0

*Denotes Tryout Player

Karri Ramo: 126:00, 1-1-0, 63 Svs, 9 GA, 4.29 GAA, .875 sv%
Riku Helenius, 125:04, 0-1-1, 52 Svs, 8 GA, 3.84 GAA, .867 sv%

For reference purposes:
2005 Traverse City Statistics
2004 Traverse City Statistics