While the emergence of Steven Stamkos and contribution of Dwayne Roloson have been major factors in the turnaround season being enjoyed by the Tampa Bay Lightning, the man who deserves the lion's share of the credit is GM Steve Yzerman.
In just his first year as general manager with the Lightning, the former Red Wings great has the Lightning back in the conference finals after three consecutive losing campaigns.
Yzerman recently talked about the team's turnaround in a Q&A session with FoxSportsFlorida.com.
Regarding the changing culture in the Lightning locker room, Yzerman had the following to say:
"I think the culture itself starts with work ethic, guys who love to play the game and have a good work ethic on the ice, off the ice. You can talk about changing it all you want. . . . I can talk about it and Guy Boucher is going to do his best to enforce it. But the players in themselves have to be the ones who come to work every day, that prepare and train. We're trying to do that. Coming here a year ago gave me a good head start with some of the players who were already here. There's a very good nucleus of people here. Starting out as a new management team, I think we're ahead of the game because we have a real good, solid core to start with."
To read the entire Q&A with Steve Yzerman, click here.
