- Lightning hired Pierre-Edouard Bellemare as a player development specialist Thursday
- The retired forward played 700 games, the most by any France-trained player in NHL history
- Read below for what Bellemare said about coming back to Tampa
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare isn’t done with hockey. He’s just done playing it.
The Lightning hired the retired forward as a player development specialist on Thursday. The 41-year-old will work under JP Cote, focus on forward prospects, and spend time with Tampa Bay’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse.
Tampa Bay made the move official Thursday morning:
Bellemare talked about landing back with the team where he spent two seasons, and he didn’t hide how much it meant to him.
“I am so proud to come back to the Tampa organization,” he told NHL.com. “I feel absolutely privileged and excited at the same time. Like I’ve always said, I will stop playing the game when I stop learning, and now, all of a sudden, there is a brand new type of learning I’m going to do.”
He earned the job the hard way. Bellemare went undrafted and debuted with the Flyers in 2014-15, then played 700 games across stops in Philadelphia, Vegas, Colorado, Tampa and Seattle. That is the most by any player born and trained in France.
That total puts him second among French skaters in NHL history with 138 points, behind only Antoine Roussel. He also reached two Stanley Cup Finals, with Vegas in 2018 and the Lightning in 2022.
Bellemare hung up his skates last month after captaining France at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a childhood dream he chased for years.
He described what finally reaching that stage felt like.
“The Olympics was very surreal,” he said. “When we got to the Olympics, we’re in the village, and it just opened my eyes.”
Now he’s back in Florida, where he put up 33 points in 153 games from 2021 to 2023 and went to a Cup Final. Bellemare said that fit made the decision an easy one.
Tampa’s forward prospects in Syracuse are getting a coach who spent a decade proving undrafted grinders can build long NHL careers.
