Tampa Bay Lightning One-Hit Wonders

Welcome to Last Word on Hockey’s One Hit Wonder series. Every day we take a look at the three biggest one-hit wonders of a new team. These are players who had one great season or playoff run, but have never done anything like it again. Join us every day for a new team! Today we look at the Tampa Bay Lightning One-Hit Wonders.

The Tampa Bay Lightning Top Three One-Hit Wonders

Teddy Purcell

Our first one-hit wonder sees us take a look at the old NHL player Teddy Purcell. Playing his junior hockey for the Cedar Rapids Roughriders, he managed to build back-to-back seasons of 65+ points before joining the University of Maine for the 2006-07 season. In his lone season in Maine, he collected 43 points in 40 games played, while taking home NCAA (Hockey East) Rookie of the Year. This caught the attention of the Los Angeles Kings, who signed him as an involuntary free agent.

Purcell made his NHL debut in 2007-08 and managed to tackle 10 games with the Kings, collecting one goal and two assists. He would split another season between the AHL and the NHL before making the leap full-time in 2008-09.

Purcell’s time with the Kings was short-lived when traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning on March 3, 2010. While Purcell had managed to impress the Kings enough to give him a full-time roster, the Lightning saw its true potential and decided it was worth trading for him, and they did.

Mayfly

Purcell had a good first year in Tampa, but his second season (2011-12) was when he finally peaked as an NHL player. In 81 games played, he scored 24 goals and added 41 assists for 65 points. Purcell had always been a decent depth player who could easily set up teammates and make a decent attack, but no one expected those results.

Compared to his 2011-12 season with his other stats, his second season came in 2010-11 when he scored 51 points. While it is only a difference of 14 points, he has never surpassed more than 20 goals and 40 assists after that season.

After the miracle

Purcell played two more seasons for the Lightning, but was never able to return to his peak season. The Lighting eventually saw him as replaceable and they exchanged Purcell on June 29, 2014 in exchange for the Edmonton Oilers Sam win.

Purcell is a great example of how a player was considered a dominant force one season and moderate again the next. It’s extremely difficult to produce on a consistent level in the NHL, and Purcell never returned to his peak as a player in the end.

Purcell spent the rest of his NHL career playing for the Oilers, the Florida Panthers and the Kings (for a second time) before going overseas and signing with the KHL’s Avangard Omsk. He only played 21 games in the KHL before retiring from professional hockey at the age of 32.

Stan Drulia

Unlike Purcell, Stan Drulia did not have a long NHL career. Drafted in the 11th round, 214th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1986 NHL Draft, Drulia certainly spent his time in the minors. After dominating junior hockey, playing with the Belleville Bulls, Hamilton Steelhawks and the Niagara Falls Thunder, Drulia signed an AHL contract with the AHL’s Maine Mariners. He played only three games with them before moving on and signed with the IHL’s Phoenix Roadrunners.

Drulia bounced around between the AHL and IHL before coming in 24 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992-93. In those games, he managed to score two goals and added an assist for three points, along with 10 minutes of penalties. Clearly it was not enough for Lightning management when he went back to the IHL and spent the next six seasons between the Atlanta Knights and the Detroit Vipers.

Mayfly

After a long career that dominated the minors, Drulia finally made the Lightning full-time at the start of the 1999-00 season. However, no one saw what would come next. In 68 games played, he would collect 11 goals and add 22 assists for 33 points, along with 24 minutes in penalties.

What shocked everyone was the fact that Drulia had spent so much time in the minors. Everyone thought he would come in and collect a few points, but he blew it out of the water. Drulia proved, albeit for a very short period, that he could be an offensive producer and contribute every night. His next career high in the NHL points was six points, so he is indeed the true definition of a one-hit wonder.

After the miracle

Drulia peaked in his career the season before and again reached the Lightning roster before the start of the 2000-01 season. In 34 games, he scored two goals and added four assists for six points, along with 18 minutes of penalties. This would be Drulia’s last professional hockey season and he called it a career at the age of 33.

Although he stopped playing, Drulia has remained very active in the professional hockey world. Started as the head coach for the Orlando Seals of the Atlantic Coast Hockey League in 2002-2003, he has become the head coach and assistant coach of many teams playing in the ECHL, IHL and AHL. Drulia recently accepted a job as a pro scout who worked for the Nashville Predators in 2018 and is still working with the organization.

Chris Kontos

Many people classify a one-hit wonder using the example of it Chris Kontos. If you were to look up the greatest one-hit wonders in NHL history, it will almost certainly be listed. Drafted in the first round, 15th overall by the New York Rangers in the 1982 NHL Draft, it is safe to say that Kontos never lived up to his hype as a player.

Kontos played junior hockey in the OHL for the Toronto Marlboros and the Sudbury Wolves. After completing his last junior season with the Marlboros in 1982-83, he made the leap to the NHL and ended the season with the Rangers. Kontos jumped around a lot as a player. For his first few seasons, he stayed with the Rangers organization, but achieved poor grades.

Kontos played part of the 1985-86 season in Finland, but eventually returned to North America and played in the AHL. He joined the Penguins-organization, but again didn’t last long with them, playing in only 67 games in parts of two seasons.

The following few years, Kontos played for the Kings, the New Haven Knights of the AHL, the Phoenix Roadrunners of the IHL, and even went on to play in Italy before returning and joining the Lightning for his one-hit wonder season.

Mayfly

At the Lightning before the start of the 1992-1993 season, no one could have expected what would come next. In his lone season on the bout, Kontos scored 27 goals and added 24 assists for 51 points in 66 games played. It can be described as a shooting star and it came out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly.

His season with one hit wonder is one of the most famous in NHL history, as his previous career highs came in points in 1986-87 when he collected 17 points in 31 games he played while playing for the Penguins.

After the miracle

Kontos would continue to play professional hockey until his retirement in 1998. He never played a game in the NHL again, but did see stints in the IHL, Division 1 in Sweden and the DEL in Germany.

All in all, Kontos will always be one of those hockey stories that everyone looks back on in awe as no one could have predicted. It’s stories like his that make the hockey sport so great.

That’s it for the Tampa Bay Lightning one hit miracles. Stay tuned for the Toronto Maple Leafs one-hit wonders tomorrow.

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