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Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos (91) carries the puck past Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Erixon (33) during first period NHL hockey action in Toronto on Tuesday, March 31, 2015.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

From basket-case to powerhouse, in a few hundred not-so-easy steps.

By Steve Yzerman.

It could be a bestseller, if the Tampa Bay Lightning general manager chose to write out and explain how he's taken a franchise from the bottom of the NHL to the top in less than five years.

That's not hyperbole. Even after a 3-1 loss to Toronto on Tuesday, the Lightning still sit near the top of the standings – as they have all year – and have a legitimate shot at winning the Eastern Conference in the postseason.

What's most remarkable about that, however, is they've done it with an extremely young team – many of its prospects came up through the club's development system along with head coach Jon Cooper.

A lot of that is thanks to Yzerman, who came in with a plan to emulate the draft-and-develop model he learned in Detroit.

He looked for speed and skill over size and brawn, taking advantage of other teams' reluctance to draft Russian players, among other things.

He identified talent in other front offices – people such as Julien BriseBois in Montreal – and poached it.

And he allowed a lot of the young players to brew in the minors, where they won a championship back in 2012. Now they could win the big one with this club.

Tuesday's loss wasn't the best representation of what Yzerman has assembled, but the bones were there. Tampa Bay is banged up on the blueline – missing four regulars against the Leafs – and sat Tyler Johnson and starting netminder Ben Bishop.

With 101 points, the Bolts are getting ready for the postseason, where they faltered badly in Round 1 a year ago, in part due to some growing pains.

But the group that was on the ice against Toronto was impressive nonetheless. Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov have, along with Johnson, become the league's best second line and one of the highest-scoring trios, period. And they've done it for a bargain at a combined cap hit of about $7-million (U.S.).

Then there are the two obvious pillars in Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman (also injured) – picked first and second overall in dark times (2008 and 2009) – and many who are less heralded, such as Alex Killorn.

Tampa's next generation is coming: Vladislav Namestnikov, Jonathan Drouin and Andrei Vasilevskiy, a rising star in goal who was surprisingly off against the Leafs.

Yzerman has supplemented all that with some savvy buys in free agency, rarely blowing his budget in getting UFA unicorns such as a top-pair defenceman (Anton Stralman) or top centre (Valtteri Filppula) when needed.

The Lightning rarely get lumped in with the NHL's recent hard-luck franchises because they've won a Stanley Cup (2004) and have had superstars like Stamkos on hand for years. But back when they had a mess of an ownership group and a TV personality behind the bench, they cratered to the same sort of lows the Leafs are now experiencing and managed to bounce back remarkably quickly by making a lot of smart decisions.

Yes, Yzerman had the benefit of having Stamkos and Hedman, who are essentially the only two players left from the previous, disastrous regime. But as other rebuilds elsewhere have shown, having two or three wunderkinds is not always a fast road up.

Part of what makes the Lightning so enticing is their stars are right at their peak. Stamkos just turned 25. Hedman is only 23. They, potentially, have years of winning ahead.

The Leafs are in the opposite spot, with few elite young players contributing and a lot of losses on the way. They still need their foundational players, and their pick this summer – whether it be third, fourth or fifth overall – will have to be a great one.

But the brilliant part of what Yzerman did in Tampa is he didn't simply ride the bottom of the standings for a half decade; he added vital parts late in the first round (Namestnikov, Vasilevskiy), in the second round (Kucherov) and even deeper (Palat, Johnson).

He showed that it doesn't have to take forever if you can pull in talent from every available source.

That's what the Lightning have done, and as a result, they've been able to post three 100-plus point seasons in Yzerman's five years without sacrificing any of their future in getting there.

There are many, many lessons in all of that for the Leafs. Fans just have to hope that Brendan Shanahan learned some of the same things Yzerman did in his years with the Red Wings, watching that machine churn out stars from unlikely sources, again and again.

Enough to fill a book.

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