Fresh faces brought in over the last few seasons have helped Lightning progress. (USATSI)
Fresh faces brought in over the last few seasons have helped Lightning progress. (USATSI)

How long does a rebuild take? That’s a question that’s being asked by several teams lately and it’s a hard question to answer. Teams are constantly looking for the next “[Insert Recent Stanley Cup Champion Here] Model” to emulate. But there’s always going to be some kind of snag that won’t allow a team to build like the Los Angeles Kings, or the Chicago Blackhawks or the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Boston Bruins.

The salary cap, along with the bounce of the ping pong balls in the NHL’s draft lottery, make following any one model near impossible. You can take bits and pieces from each and try to put something together, but in the end, the general manager has to make the right decisions at the right times. If he hits on half of those, then maybe it works out.

Steve Yzerman, general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning, is marching to his own beat. There’s no model but his own and the grand vision of what his club can be is starting to come to fruition.

The Lightning went on quite the run last year, finishing second in the Atlantic with 101 points a year after they finished 28th in the league. Though the dramatic turnaround was shocking, it probably came a year early. Without Ben Bishop’s ridiculous goaltending throughout the year, that run probably doesn’t happen.

This year, however, the Lightning look to be for real. They are getting good enough goaltending, but it is their offense that looks to be driving the team this time. The Lighting’s 77 goals are most in the league and there are no signs of them slowing down.

If you’re wondering when the Lightning’s Stanley Cup window was opening, it’s now.

The work Yzerman has done in four years on the job has turned this team into a legitimate contender. There are four lines that can score, the defense has depth far greater than it’s had in years and the goaltending hasn't had to be all-world to secure wins.

The Lightning didn’t need a full rebuild, of course. There were a lot of good players when Yzerman arrived, but good teams don’t wait to bottom out before changing the pieces. Still only two years removed from putting up one of the worst records in the league, the Lightning look a lot different and it’s because Yzerman is hitting way more than he is missing on decisions he has made no only over the last four years, but specifically over the last two.

It was during that rough 2012-13 season that Yzerman traded away then-Calder Trophy candidate Cory Conacher for Ben Bishop. In addition to the players the club had already drafted under Yzerman’s watch, that trade seemed to really get things rolling for this club.

It was puzzling at the time as Conacher was putting up points and Bishop had not proven himself as an NHL starter. But one player better fit the long-term vision for the club than the other. Yzerman was proved right pretty quickly on that deal as Bishop finished as a Vezina finalist last year and carried the team when they needed him to. This year, Bishop hasn't been amazing, but he's been an above-average starter which is more than enough on a deeper club.

Looking at the current roster, 21 players have been directly brought in by Yzerman since he took over general manager duties in the spring of 2010. Head coach Jon Cooper is also a hand-picked hire by Yzerman. The relative unknown coming into the NHL has rewarded his boss with a 65-41-14 record since replacing Guy Boucher in 2012-13.

The team’s biggest stars, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, were inherited, as was talented forward Alex Killorn, but primarily, this team was deconstructed and rebuilt by Yzerman in the span of four-plus years.

The result is a team with the league's third best record at 14-6-2. The Lightning also rank second in goals-per-game with a 3.46 mark and sixth in Corsi percentage at 52.6 at five-on-five according to war-on-ice.com. They are as well-rounded a team as they've been since Yzerman came to town.

What makes the restructured Lightning so impressive is how much of the team was built internally over the short span of four-plus years. This season, the team has gotten contributions out of eight Yzerman draft picks, five of which come from outside of the first round including do-everything 2011 seventh-rounder Ondrej Palat.

Nikita Kucherov is a player that is emblematic of the bold drafting of the Lightning that is paying off. The "Russian factor" caused the gifted scorer to tumbled down the draft charts in 2011, but Tampa nabbed him at 58th overall. In his first full NHL season, Kucherov is fourth on the team with 18 points at age 21.

The team has also hit on undrafted free agent signings, nabbing second-leading scorer Tyler Johnson that route, as well as important depth players J.T. Brown and Andrej Sustr. Teams are usually lucky if one of the many undrafted players they sign over a four-year span pan out at all. This team is hitting on just about all of them and turned one undrafted signee -- Conacher -- into their starting goaltender.

But teams can’t only be built through the draft. Yzerman has been hitting on his trades as well.

The forced deal of Martin St. Louis to the New York Rangers brought back an impressive haul that included Ryan Callahan, who has been excellent this season. The Lightning also got a pair of first-round draft picks that, given Yzerman’s draft record so far, may carry more value for Tampa than it would for other clubs.

Then the team spent the money this summer. They held on to Callahan with an expensive extension, signed Anton Stralman to a lengthy, but reasonable deal; brought in experienced depth players via free agency like Brian Boyle and Brenden Morrow; traded for Jason Garrison; and welcomed the arrival of top prospect Jonathan Drouin. The club also had to spend on restricted free agents like Johnson and Palat.

Everything Yzerman has done over his tenure as general manager has led up to this season, and probably next. Both probably give Tampa its best chance at the Cup since winning in 2004. Every player of significance on this roster is under contract through at least next season, with Stamkos being the biggest piece needing an extension beyond that. Assuming the club signs Stamkos to a long-term extension like they say they will, the window is probably open a few more seasons after these next two.

What we’ve seen so far this season is a team executing what their general manager has been building towards for the four previous campaigns. There’s a long way to go this season before we’ll know for sure if this team can deliver another title to Tampa Bay, but as much as last year looked like Tampa’s arrival, this season officially opens the title window. 

We may start hearing soon about the "Tampa Model," but it will be awfully hard to replicate Yzerman's hit rate.