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Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman weathered the storm quite masterfully last season when facing several incredibly difficult situations. Steven Stamkos was without a contract for the entirety of the season before going down with injury just before the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Anton Stralman also got injured and missed postseason action — but lost in that shuffle was Yzerman’s disgruntled star prospect Jonathan Drouin.

The third overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft has been on the slow track to the major leagues. In the 2013-14 regular season, he saw his close friend and former junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon make the Colorado Avalanche roster out of training camp. He would go on to have a fantastic rookie year at just 18 years old, meanwhile Drouin was sent back to Halifax in the QMJHL for development purposes.

It wasn’t a move that Drouin particularly agreed with, but he understood its necessity — he was undersized and not quite NHL-ready, so another year with the Mooseheads wouldn’t be a bad thing. Fast-forward to the 2014-15 season and Drouin, coming off a 108-point regular season and 41-point postseason in junior, had a 32-point rookie debut in Tampa. He skated in 70 games, nearly an entire season’s worth, but was kept mainly in the bottom-six due to a glut of experienced forwards ahead of him.

That’s what made his 32-point campaign so impressive — he accomplished it even though he saw limited ice time and played with far less superior linemates, a testament to how talented he is.

But things got testy when the Lightning made him a healthy scratch several times during the first half of the 2015-16 regular season, when he was struggling to produce. Feeling underutilized, Drouin quietly requested a trade in November, seeking to play for a franchise that trusted him and was willing to put him in a position to score far more.

The rocky relationship between player and team then boiled over when Drouin was sent down to the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL at the start of January – he and his agent made the request public, and it became a fascinating spectacle. Things got so heated that Drouin actually refused to report to his team’s minor-league affiliate for a while, and trade rumors abounded until the Feb. 29 deadline passed and he was still with Tampa.

Jonathan Drouin working on explosiveness at the #OctagonHockey Pro Camp in Montreal. pic.twitter.com/vszio0F6r3 — Allan Walsh (@walsha) August 22, 2016

Eventually, Drouin did show up to practice and began participating in AHL games, and when Stamkos went down just before the playoffs, Yzerman called upon his disgruntled prospect to help fill the void on his NHL roster. Drouin would go on to score 14 points (5 goals and 9 assists) in 17 playoff games, helping his team reach the Eastern Conference Final. He was arguably the team’s biggest contributor, and he was certainly their biggest break-out star during that time.

Now, with Stamkos re-upped for eight more years and franchise defender Victor Hedman locked up long-term as well, Drouin has since rescinded his trade request and will look to earn himself a spot atop the Lightning roster, right next to Stamkos.

A natural playmaker, he’s better-suited playing with a scoring center (that’s why he was wildly successful in Halifax, centered by MacKinnon), so playing with Stamkos is a great situation for both players.

Realistic expectations would be roughly 10 goals and 35 assists — a modest estimate with a lot of room for improvement. Drouin’s attempt to capitalize on his rookie year (and to forget his sophomore campaign) won’t be a failure, as he is way too talented to come up short. He’s never been much of a skater, but with elite offensive skills and the agility to get out of tough situations, he will be an asset not only on the man-advantage but also on the penalty kill.

Drouin will finally fulfill his potential as a premier, first-line forward in 2016-17.

Setting expectations for Jonathan Drouin in 2016-17