Martin St Louis

A diminutive player by NHL standards at 5-foot-7, St. Louis has played the three seasons before the 2005-06 NHL season for the Tampa Bay Lightning, and had previously played for the Calgary Flames. As an amateur he played for the University of Vermont Catamounts where he was an NCAA all-star. Despite the impressive numbers with the Catamounts, he was never drafted, and was first signed as a free agent by Calgary in 1998. He spent the latter part of the 1997-98 season with the IHL's Cleveland Lumberjacks at the time of his signing with Calgary. He did put up impressive numbers with the Saint John Flames of the American Hockey League. When Craig Button was appointed general manager of the Flames, he released St. Louis and he signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In his first few seasons with the Lightning, he managed to increase his career highs in goals, assists and points. He was on pace to have a career year in 2001-02 when his season ended prematurely due to a broken leg. His best season was in 2003-04 when he led the NHL in scoring with 94 points. He scored an overtime goal in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, helping the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Calgary Flames for the Stanley Cup. At season's end he won both the Hart Memorial Trophy as the most valuable player to his team and the Lester B. Pearson Award as league MVP voted by his peers. St. Louis became the first player since Wayne Gretzky in 1987, and only the eighth in NHL history, to win the Art Ross Trophy, the Stanley Cup, and the Hart Memorial Trophy all in one season.

In August of 2005, Martin St. Louis signed a six-year deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning worth $31.5 million. St. Louis was quoted as saying, "I'm just happy that the Lightning have found a way to keep me long-term. Tampa was always my first choice, I've had so many good things happen to me in Tampa."^{[citation needed]}

He wears number 26 to pay tribute to his childhood hero, diminutive former Montreal Canadiens star Mats Naslund. During the 2004-05 NHL lockout he played for the Swiss team HC Lausanne.

St. Louis played for Team Canada at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey, where he was part of the team which won the World Cup, and the 2006 Winter Olympics which saw them eliminated by Russia in the quarterfinals after what was considered a disappointing tournament.