imo, MSL ticks every conceivable box
high peak? won the hart trophy, led the league in scoring by seven points in a very low scoring season, capped it off by leading the playoffs in assists and finishing second in points (behind his own centre, whom he helped to the conn smythe) and winning the cup. peak is as legit as it gets.
long and productive prime? over ten consecutive seasons (2004 to 2014) he finished 1st, [off year], 5th, 12th, 16th, 5th, 2nd, 18th, 1st, 19th. that's not far off from joe thornton's scoring record of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16 in his 2003 to 2016 prime.
won awards? hart and pearson trophies, was a hart finalist a second time (he should have won, imo), five time postseason all-star.
good in the playoffs? a cup, a finals, and two game seven losses in the third round, and was the 1st/2nd leading scorer on three of them (he was 39 and about to retire in the last one).
memorable? absolutely. people loved watching him, loved rooting for him, he played a fun fiery game, was good at both ends, and routinely did things on the ice that were brilliant.
made his linemates better? richards? conn smythe. lecavalier? rocket and two seasons in the top six. stamkos? omg a four year run where he never finished lower than second in goals and fifth in points and we all were ready to induct him as a first ballot hall of famer at the age of twenty-three.
showed he could carry the mail by himself? see: 2011 after stamkos turned into a pumpkin + playoffs, where MSL led his team to game seven of the third round and ended up third in playoff scoring. also, 2014, where he helped rookies palat and johnson finish as calder finalists and before he was traded at the deadline helped the team to the #2 seed with no stamkos, at which point they were swept in the first round by the habs (meanwhile, MSL made the finals with the rangers, leading their forwards in scoring at 38 years old).
importance to franchise? best player on a cup winner, its all-time leading scorer, played more than 1,000 games there if you count playoffs. but also...
he was far and away the main guy when the young TB core that he led realized they were something special—in the first round against washington in 2003, down 2-0 in the first playoff series he, richards, lecavalier, kubina, and boyle ever played in the NHL, and up against jagr, kolzig, gonchar, bondra, and peak/sneaky elite robert lang, MSL scores 3 points in game 3 (4-3 win), two goals including the tie-breaker that stood up as the GWG in game 4 (3-1 win), two goals including the third period GWG in game 5 (2-1 win), triple OT series winner in game 6 (2-1 win). he scored three out of four game winners, scored eight out of his team's eleven points (the entire washington team had six goals, so he outscored them all by himself), both he and tampa bay as a team were +7 in those four games, i.e., he also was never on the ice for an ES goal against (although as one of TB's main penalty killers, there's a good chance he was on the ice for one or both of washington's PP goals), and i'm pretty sure he was on the ice for literally every goal (there were two PP goals he wasn't in on, but he almost certainly would have been on the ice). they lost to the eventual champ devils in the next round, but came back the next season to win the presidents trophy and cup. if MSL going off in that washington series never happens, there might not even be a tampa bay lightning right now.
