The first thing that strikes you – no pun intended – about the Lightning is their age.

Or their lack of it.

They're young, almost impossibly so, with the vast majority of the roster never having known what real free agency is. Of their top-six scorers in these playoffs, the oldest is Alex Killorn, the 25-year-old Harvard grad from Halifax who quietly leads Tampa's forwards in ice time.

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They have a lot of those unlikely stories. On average, this team is 26 years old, with 13 of the 23 players who have dressed in this postseason born in 1990 or later. If the Lightning go on to win the Stanley Cup, they'd be the second youngest team to do so since the 1980s Oilers dynasty teams.

They also embody what the best teams in the NHL have become: fast, skilled and dynamic.

This group may have had 108 points this season, but the best is yet to come.

As tends to be the case in the NHL these days, the man deserving of most of the credit sits up in the press box, grimacing and swearing his way through all these tense playoff games. Less than 10 years removed his last game as a player, and only five into his tenure in Tampa, Steve Yzerman – a young man by GM standards, having turned only 50 last week – has built a powerhouse.

And he's done it in the image of all those great Detroit Red Wings teams he spent so much time winning with.

That makes sense, given that was the only team Yzerman knew. When he retired in 2006, he stepped immediately into the Wings' front office, where he apprenticed for four years under Ken Holland, learning the off-ice side of the franchise his sweat and tears had helped build.

Where you see those four years in the Lightning is obvious. Tampa has become – along with the Anaheim Ducks – incredibly adept at finding talent in improbable places, which was a necessity for Detroit given Holland and Co. never had high picks.

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An example: When no one was drafting Russian and Czech players, Yzerman loaded up, finding immense value in Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Nikita Nesterov and Vladislav Namestnikov, all of whom are playing in this postseason.

That was in the 2011 draft alone, with the Lightning picking 27th.

But it hasn't been only about exploiting Europe. Tampa has also been downright fearless when it comes to focusing on skill over size, drafting more forwards under six feet tall than any other organization. That's apparent even on the current roster, with the average forward typified by the likes of 5-foot-9 Tyler Johnson.

Even counting 6-foot-7 behemoth Brian Boyle, the Lightning's average forward in these playoffs is under six feet tall and 195 pounds. Without him, they drop almost an inch and five pounds.

Overall, the team's philosophy could be summed as the Search for Datsyuks: late picked, supremely skilled, overlooked players. A whole team of them, if they can find them.

In terms of style, the phrase that comes up in the organization, again and again, is another borrowed from Detroit and legendary coach Scotty Bowman, who preached playing a possession game above all else. That's something the Lightning excelled at during the regular season – finishing tied (with the Wings) for first in the East in even-strength shot-attempt share, at 54 per cent – but the playoffs have been a different animal.

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Tampa has looked disjointed at times, getting outplayed in Game 7 against Detroit in Round 1 and then in several games against Montreal in Round 2.

Somehow they've survived, relying on timely goals and big Ben Bishop in goal to get by, but being this ordinary won't be enough to beat the New York Rangers four times in the next six games, as is now required after dropping Game 1 on the weekend.

"We just kept stubbing our toe all night," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of the 2-1 loss. "We were just handing them tickets to the movie, and we were a turnstile and watching them go by. We can't do that. …

"We have to possess the puck more. It's been a big part of the reason why we're here. If we're not going to do that, it's going to be a long night, short series."

What it looks like more than anything is growing pains. This isn't the same Lightning team that breezed through the season; it's a group playing its age, with a more tentative game when the stakes are raised.

If that proves fatal and they can't advance, they'll also have that in common with those Detroit teams, way back when. It took them time to become what they were, to amass enough talent and figure out how to win.

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But Yzerman certainly seems to have another group on that path, in a new role and a new era.

Follow me on Twitter: @mirtle