(Ed. Note: It’s the NHL Alternate History project! We’ve asked fans and bloggers from 31 teams to pick one turning point in their franchise’s history and ask ‘what if things had gone differently?’ Trades, hirings, firings, wins, losses, injuries … all of it. How would one different outcome change the course of history for an NHL team? Today: Achariya Tanya Rezak of Raw Charge on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Enjoy!)

By Achariya Tanya Rezak

Like many of the denizens of Florida, I love watching telenovelas.

That’s also why I love hockey — in any given season there’s enough drama, intrigue, good, evil, heroes and villains to fill the plot of the longest-running subtitled serial dramas. The Tampa Bay Lightning have had their fill of cinematic moments (the fanbase will never forget the abrupt departure of beloved character Martin St. Louis, as he flounced off, stage left), but no character has been more fascinating in recent years than another Quebecois lad: Jonathan Drouin.

Drouin was the fanbase’s hope for the future, the rising young playmaker that would set up Steven Stamkos’s one-timers after Martin St. Louis departed. But despite getting drafted at third overall in 2013, everyone in Tampa had to hold our collective breath for another year because this telenovela’s director, Steve Yzerman, sent Drouin back to acting school. Drouin went into camp determined to impress — and after camp, got busted back to Halifax, much to our sorrow and Mooseheads’ fans delight.

Yzerman said to Yahoo:

“Well, we think he’s an incredible talent, a very intelligent hockey player, great hockey sense, great vision. We just feel he’s better served by playing another year of junior hockey. I don’t want him being in and out of the lineup. I don’t want him playing limited minutes. Our assessment was he’s better off playing another year of junior hockey, hopefully playing for Canada at the world junior championships and developing there.”

At the time, Yzerman spoke of his commitment to Drouin’s growth and development, but in his words you could faintly detect the diesel odor of Detroit and shadow of the winged wheel. Was Yzerman going to overcook Drouin as his years in Detroit had taught him?

Which brings me to the first what-if of many in this telenovela’s alternate universe: What if Drouin had not been sent back in 2013-14?

Tales of Drouin’s deeds in Halifax were legendary, and we all watched as he worked on his defensive skills as a center. He played 46 games with Halifax in 2013-14, garnering 29 goals and 79 assists, 108 points in all. Was this going to be enough to get him some time in the NHL?

It was, and we fans of the Tampa Bay Lightning were excited about seeing Drouin, finally, in the lineup for the 2014-15 season. But then he broke his thumb in a wacky fall during training camp and didn’t see the ice until near the end of October. He briefly went to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch on a conditioning stint after the injury, but debuted with the NHL team when injuries to other forwards on a Western Canada trip made it necessary. Incidentally, this is when the Triplets were born, but that’s a different telenovela plotline.

The 2014-15 season was remarkable in franchise history. Steven Stamkos took the ice as captain for the first time. The black third jerseys debuted, and we could finally defend ourselves against Leafs fans’ accusations of jersey theft by wearing an LA Kings-lookalike instead. (Just kidding. TBL jerseys are perfect.) But perhaps it was this season and not 2013-14 that was the seed of Drouin’s demise as a franchise player for the Lightning.

By the end of October 2014, coach Jon Cooper saw fit to bust Drouin down the lineup. Drouin was not on the first line with Stamkos. Sometimes he wasn’t even on the second line, and barely broke the third. Why? There was a lot of speculation, but it boiled down to a phrase that Lightning fans would learn like a mantra: He needed to learn to play away from the puck. In 70 games played, Drouin scored four goals and 28 assists, while yet remaining the analytics geeks’ darling by managing a CF% of 53.8 despite dragging the fourth line down the ice.