But for those suspecting there might have been a hometown bias in the roster-building, the star Lightning center Steven Stamkos said it “wasn’t just a charity case.”

Tampa Bay, after all, entered the All-Star break with a league-best 71 points in the standings. Joining Stamkos on the Atlantic Division’s team were right wing Nikita Kucherov, center Brayden Point and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.

“We could have probably had more,” said Stamkos, who has 58 points, tied for third in the NHL. “It’s been that fun and successful of a season so far.”

Stamkos missed most of last season with a knee injury and the Lightning finished fifth in the division, a rare blip of underperformance in Steve Yzerman’s time as the team’s general manager.

Yzerman, who has won four Stanley Cups and three Olympic gold medals as a player and executive, has been credited with much of the Lightning’s sustained success the past eight seasons.

“Whatever you do in life, part of being successful is passion,” said Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, who began training Yzerman during his playing career and presided over Yzerman’s three championships as a player before working with him when Detroit won another title in 2008. “It can’t be work. If it’s just a job, your energy level is going to be drained over time. That passion and desire to gather knowledge are what Steve had as a player and he’s also taken into the front office.”

Yzerman arrived in Tampa in 2010 after serving in the Red Wings’ front office for four years and guiding Canada to Olympic gold in 2010 as the team’s executive director — a feat the country would repeat under him in 2014.

He found success quickly in Tampa. During Yzerman’s first season, the Lightning surprised the hockey world by reaching Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. When they reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015, only three members of the 2010-11 team were on the roster. Just two of them, Stamkos and Victor Hedman, are still with the franchise.

Such has been the adaptive nature of the Lightning under Yzerman.

In 2015, Martin St. Louis, a former league scoring champion and the team’s captain at the time, demanded a trade. Although he limited his list of possible destinations to one team — the New York Rangers — the Lightning managed to acquire a younger player and another former captain, forward Ryan Callahan, and valuable draft picks.

This past offseason, Yzerman also ended a long-running soap opera with the former top draft choice Jonathan Drouin by dealing him to Montreal for defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, one of this season’s top rookies.

In 2016, Stamkos eschewed an open-market bidding war in favor of an eight-year contract with Tampa Bay. Stamkos said owner Jeffrey Vinik’s commitment to the team was a big factor in his decision, as was Yzerman’s prescience in the front office.

“He brought in Steve Yzerman, and those are two very intelligent guys,” Stamkos said of Vinik. “That’s how you build a culture. It’s about winning. It’s about being a great teammate. When you have an owner that’s willing to do whatever it takes to have a winning hockey club, you definitely feed off that.”

Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who used to approach the bench as a public defender before stepping behind it as a hockey coach, also credited Vinik for fostering a winning culture.

“He doesn’t own the arena, but he puts all his own money into it to make it modern,” Cooper said. “You wouldn’t think the arena was built in 1993; you’d think it was built in 2017. I think there’s a culture of longevity, a culture of stability here, and I think that carries over into the team.”

The Lightning, who won a title in 2004, re-signed other cornerstone players like Hedman, a former Norris Trophy finalist, and Kucherov, a Hart Trophy contender this season, to favorable extensions in 2016. They also re-signed Tyler Johnson, an undrafted forward who later became their top center during two long stretches without Stamkos.

Kucherov, who had a hat trick in the first round of Sunday’s tournament, was a late second-round draft pick in 2011. He carried his momentum from a dominant second half last season and now leads the league with 63 points, and he is also on pace for a career-high 45 goals. At 24 years old, he is a rare commodity: a top-line wing with a fourth-line work ethic and a leading goal-scorer who is also a willing passer.

“I’d like to step in and take credit for Kuch, but I can’t. He’s a wonderful talent,” said Cooper, who also coached Kucherov in the minors before observing his long, often solitary days at the rink during muggy Tampa summers.

Cooper added: “If you want to get better, it’s got to be inside you. A lot of that is your inner drive. He wanted to be better.”

Last season, Tampa Bay traded goalie Ben Bishop, a former Vezina Trophy finalist, and handed the starting job to Vasilevskiy, 23. While Cooper admitted there were some challenging points in the transition, he never doubted Vasilevskiy’s long-term outlook as a franchise goalie. Both he and Vasilevskiy said that as the goaltender’s responsibility increased, so did his confidence. He leads the league in wins (29) and shutouts (seven).

Over the weekend, Vasilevskiy competed with the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist, 35, who praised his younger counterpart and a new generation of technically advanced goaltenders.

“If I compare him to me, technically he’s way better because he grew up with that style,” Lundqvist said. “That’s what you see in his game: He’s very technical and still able to use his size.”

Beyond their first-team roster, the Lightning still have some outstanding prospects at their disposal for call-ups, or to use as assets at the trade deadline on Feb. 26. In their own division, they will have to hold off the rival Boston Bruins, who went into the break on an 18-game point streak.

It will be another chance for Yzerman to adapt in trying to bring a Stanley Cup back to Tampa Bay.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ANDREW KNOLL © 2018 The New York Times