TAMPA, Fla. -- It's not that no one saw Steven Stamkos coming.

Face it, when a guy is the first player selected in his draft year and his new team builds an advertising campaign around him months before he takes his first shift in the league, well, flying under the radar is pretty much out of the question.

But almost no one expected Stamkos, a second-year center with Tampa Bay, to have such a profound impact so early in his pro career.

"I knew he was going to be good," Lightning coach Rick Tocchet said. "I didn't know he would develop this quickly."

Forget developing. Stamkos, who turned 20 Feb. 7, seems to have skipped that stage and gone straight to dominating.

Going into the games Saturday night, he ranked third in the NHL in goals (42) and fifth in points (81). Odds are Stamkos will not close the 15-point gap separating him from Washington's Alex Ovechkin, who leads the league with 96 points, but he certainly could catch Ovechkin (44) and/or Penguins center Sidney Crosby (45) in the goals race.

Especially if, beginning with a game against the Penguins at 5:08 p.m. today at the St. Pete Times Forum, he gets back on the kind of run he had before being shut out during a 3-2 victory in Washington Friday.

Before being shut out by the Capitals, Stamkos had put up points in a team-record 18 consecutive games. He also had at least one goal in seven games in a row, second-longest streak by a Lightning player.

And, not coincidentally, he helped to keep Tampa Bay in contention for a playoff spot, even though it was in a 1-6-1 skid before knocking off the Capitals. Tocchet said Stamkos and his linemates, Martin St. Louis and Steve Downie, "carried us offensively for the last month."

Strangely, none of those three managed a point at the Verizon Center Friday night, in a victory the Lightning hopes will prove to be a pivotal point in its season. It gave Tampa Bay a badly needed psychological boost and lifted it to within four points of eighth-place Boston in the Eastern Conference, pending the outcome of the Bruins' game at Montreal Saturday night.

The Lightning has 15 games left, beginning with the one against the Penguins. That's enough to overtake Boston, but provides little margin for error.

"There still are plenty of points available," Tocchet said. "But we have to go on a streak. We're hoping to be where we were before, where you controlled your own destiny, but now we have to look for help."

Some of that could come from inside the Lightning's locker room. The goaltending of Mike Smith and Antero Niittymaki could be less porous, the guys in front of them could cut down on their lapses in defensive-zone coverage and guys like ex-Penguin Ryan Malone could contribute more to the offense.

Malone, who has missed two of the past three games because of an undisclosed injury, is Tampa Bay's No. 4 scorer, with 21 goals and 23 assists in 65 games, but has not scored a goal in his past 15 games and has two in his past 27.

Malone made headlines in the summer of 2008, when the Penguins traded his rights to the Lightning and he signed a seven-year contract here. Not as many, however, as Stamkos generated in connection with the "Seen Stamkos?" publicity campaign the team mounted after making him the No. 1 choice in the draft.

Stamkos struggled early in his rookie season, but finished with a respectable 23 goals and 23 assists. Nice numbers, although hardly reason to suspect the kind of breakout season he is having in 2009-10.

Stamkos' greatest assets as a goal-scorer, Tocchet said, are the speed with which he gets the puck off his stick and the accuracy of his shot.

"Look at great goal-scorers -- Overchkin, [Dany] Heatley, [Alexander] Semin, obviously, [Sidney] Crosby -- and they all have that quick release," Tocchet said. "That's the key with those guys.

His commitment to getting the most out of his skills is critical, too. To get in the best shape possible, Stamkos has trained with former Penguin Gary Roberts, whose workout regimen is legendary.

"He's put in the hard work," Tocchet said. "We've asked him to do certain things, and he has done them."

And, in the process, done more than anyone could have anticipated at this point in his career.

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