The Tampa Bay Lightning hockey operations staff continuously ask themselves the same question when considering which players to select at the NHL Draft each year.
Are they Bolts?
Tampa Bay wants quality hockey players, but their culture also demands good people, according to director of amateur scouting John Rosso.
Rosso talked this week about the organization’s draft philosophy, this year’s draft class and previous draft successes.
“We call them Bolts,” Rosso said of the type of players the Lightning look for in the draft. “Are they Bolts?”
“Some guys like wearing the jacket because they like to get noticed, some guys just want to be hockey players. We want the guys who want to be hockey players. So if they're high character, good teammates, (their) captains and coaches speak highly of them, teammates speak highly of them…for the most part you’re just looking for high-character kids who want to be hockey players.”
The Lightning draft approach
The Lightning currently hold seven draft picks on Saturday, the second day of the draft after Round 1 commenced on Friday in Los Angeles. Today’s selections must check a few proverbial boxes in order to earn a draft call from Tampa Bay.
When making a pick, the focus is rarely on filling a predetermined position on the ice and instead often balances the team’s draft board and common sense. The Lightning enter each draft with a list which ranks available players in tiers, and the staff then aim for their top-ranked player in the highest tier while also fitting the organization’s needs.
"We put the list together, and then we kind of have it tiered off. So hey, this group of players is kind of all the same, and then it's, 'Hey, we've drafted four forwards in a row, maybe we shouldn't draft another forward.' You just try to use some common sense,” Rosso said.
Tampa Bay has repeatedly found success deeper in the draft process. The franchise will look to uncover more late talent in 2025 as six of their seven picks are after the third round.
The organization’s ability to find NHL players beyond the opening rounds of the draft is a result of front office setup and trusting the process, according to Rosso.
Three amateur scouts operate in Canada, and four more are assigned across Europe. There are two U.S. scouts, and other staff visit various regions throughout the year. Each group of scouts is hyperfocused on their own region, Rosso said, allowing them to get the best idea of how each prospect might fit.
There is not a set number of times scouts must see a player in order to be considered, but the aim is to reassess players every few weeks. Over the course of each season, the draft list begins to narrow—by playoffs, scouts are usually watching the same handful of players.
"They can really watch their players over and over and over again. It'd be really nice if you could just watch a player once and then figure them out and say, 'Okay, got that one, move on to the next one.' But it doesn't work that way. Sometimes they play well, sometimes you don't notice them, sometimes they're injured. So it's the ability to go back over and over again and watch a kid eight, nine, 10 times in your area to finally try to get a picture of what he is.”
Especially later in the draft, management relies on the regional scouts to decide who the pick should be.
"You look to your area guys, and there the guys are like, ‘This is the guy. I think we can get them in the sixth (round), I think we can get them in the seventh.’ And they have done all the work on them,” Rosso said. “You’ve just got to trust your area guys. So I think it's the way our staff is set up. We're so area focused, those guys really get to dig in and follow those guys throughout the whole season.”
With this year’s draft being decentralized, each team will make their picks from their own homemade war rooms. At AMALIE Arena, that will bring a new experience.
Rosso said while it might be different than the typical draft setup of all 32 teams in one room, this year carries the benefit of open conversation and planning for the Lightning group.
“Having all the guys here, the guys will be way more involved and way more engaged, and there will be way more talk as you watch the picks go off the board.”
That means everyone will be prepared and on the same page regarding which player they plan to take when the Lightning are announced as ‘on the clock’.
The team will have its draft list ready, and someone will type the player’s name into the league’s computer system. The Lightning will then announce the pick via livestream to the NHL broadcast from the open room next door to the war room.
A look at the 2025 class
Different reviews and draft media have called attention to this year’s draft, wondering whether it contains a dynamic, game-changing offensive forward, while others have said it likely isn’t as deep of a draft compared to years prior.
Rosso said often draft classes are assessed too early, saying teams often find NHL players later in the draft.
“Those early guys, comparing them to Connor Bedard or anyone else who have been taken high and comparing the top of the draft, most people are looking at the top of the draft and saying, ‘Hey, it's not as good as it was last year.’ Time will tell if it's a good draft or not,” Rosso said, “because you never know with most of these guys until a few years down the road.”
Despite not holding a first-round pick this season, the Lightning are still motivated to find players who have an impact on the organization. And according to Rosso, a player doesn’t have to see NHL playing time to be considered a good draft pick.
Often fans look back on a team’s draft, tally the combined number of NHL games played and then judge whether the correct players were selected that year. To Rosso, though, drafts can be deemed a success even if every player doesn’t reach the NHL.
“You want to draft guys that are part of your organization in some way, shape or form going forward…You could help Tampa and be a good pick. You could help Syracuse and be a good pick. There's different levels to it,” he said.
"You could have a guy who ends up being a five-year player in Syracuse, ends up being a captain, and maybe he helps some of your younger guys who eventually go on to the NHL, so that can be a successful pick. There's many different ways that a guy can be a successful pick for your organization.”
An ode to 2011
Rosso didn’t hesitate when asked which Lightning draft class stands out.
He recalled the 2011 NHL Draft in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rosso had just been hired to join the Lightning, just in time to watch the team select Vladislav Namestnikov in Round 1, Nikita Kucherov in Round 2 and then Nikita Nesterov, Adam Wilcox, Matthew Peca and Ondrej Palat. All six players played at least a game in the NHL.
“I had nothing to do with that draft. I just sat and watched, but it was impressive as a whole,” Rosso said. “Even Vladdy (Namestnikov) was a late first-round pick. So it's not like you're picking top five throughout the whole draft. So it was impressive. Just to look back on that almost 15 years removed from that, like, that was an unbelievable draft.”
Rosso said the team is eager to follow all of their draft picks in their professional careers, and he was happy to see forward prospect Dylan Duke’s progression last year.
Duke, 22, was the team’s fourth-round selection in 2021 and scored his first career NHL goal in his first career game during the 2024-25 season.
"That was a really interesting one,” he said of the Duke pick. “I thought that he played so hard, and he seems like a well liked teammate just because he plays so hard. Guys will always follow that.”
Tune-In Information
Round 1: Friday, June 27, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN and ESPN+)
Rounds 2-7: Saturday, June 28, 12:00 p.m. ET (ESPN+ and NHL Network)
