2023-24 NHL team preview: Tampa Bay Lightning

LAST SEASON

Last season was a bit of a cool-down year for the Tampa Bay Lightning. They had just come off one of the most incredible runs in recent NHL history. Between 2020 and 2022, the Lightning made the Stanley Cup Final three seasons in a row and won two Stanley Cups. They were the first team since the 1984 New York Islanders to make the Final in three straight seasons.

Going into the 2022-23 season there were very high expectations for the Lightning. They started off the year on a high note with a record of 36-17-4 by Feb. 24. So it came as a bit of a surprise that the team began to falter toward the end of the season as the cumulative exhaustion of the previous three seasons caught up with the team. The Lightning had a record of 10-13-2 in the final 25 games to end the year. Luckily for them, they had such a strong start to the season that it was enough for them to comfortably qualify for the playoffs, good for third in the Atlantic Division.

The 2022-23 season featured one of the best individual seasons in franchise history when Nikita Kucherov scored 113 points; a 51-goal season from Brayden Point; and a career year from Brandon Hagel. The Lightning ended up losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who snapped their 19-year streak of never winning any playoff series. While the Lightning were strong overall in the regular season, they were completely overshadowed by the Boston Bruins who shattered NHL records with their 65-win, 135-point season.

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Conor Sheary, LW
Jonas Johansson, G
Luke Glendening, C
Calvin de Haan, D
Tyler Motte, LW
Austin Watson, RW
Logan Brown, C
Mitchell Chaffee, RW

Departures

Alex Killorn, LW (Ana)
Patrick Maroon, LW (Min)
Ross Colton, C (Col)
Ian Cole, D (Van)
Trevor Carrick, D (Ana)
Corey Perry, RW (Chi)
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, LW (Sea)
Brian Elliott, G (UFA)

OFFENSE

The Lightning finished the 2022-23 season with the eighth-best offense in the NHL. They averaged 3.41 goals per game, right between the seventh-place Dallas Stars and the ninth-place Maple Leafs. It was the third consecutive year that they finished eighth or ninth in the NHL in scoring. The league grew accustomed to Tampa Bay simply being one of the better offensive teams, but not the best.

Tampa Bay has become one of the most creative teams in the NHL when it comes to replacing forwards. In the reality of the salary cap world, players routinely price themselves out of the team’s budget. An example of this is when Alex Killorn hit free agency on July 1 after his previous contract ended. Killorn had elevated his game and was one of the most productive wingers on the team for the last two seasons. He was at the point in his career where he likely had enough gas left in for one more big contract and he made that clear going into free agency. The Anaheim Ducks procured his services at $6.25M annually for four years. That’s a player that the Lightning would have loved to keep but he played too well and they could no longer afford him.

As it stands right now, the Lightning still own a pretty good forward group. The core of Steven Stamkos, Kucherov, and Point is intact and players like Conor Sheary, Tanner Jeannot, Luke Glendening, and Tyler Motte have been brought in to plug up the holes in their overall depth. The acquisition of Nick Paul has paid off and he remains one of the better third-line centers in the league. This isn’t the best forward group we’ve seen from Tampa, but that’s going to happen after many years of salary cap dodging. It nevertheless should be good enough to propel the team into the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season.

DEFENSE

A big factor that will decide how the Lightning fare this season in an increasingly competitive Atlantic Division is the play of Victor Hedman. Hedman is one of the best defensemen in the NHL but he had a major setback last season. He only put up nine goals and 49 points and was generally not as strong defensively as in previous seasons. That’s a 36-point drop from the previous season when he scored 20 goals and 85 points in 2021-22. It is possible that age is catching up with the Swede after numerous taxing playoff runs, but I think he still has a bounce-back in him.

Besides Hedman and Mikhail Sergachev, who has emerged as a legit top-pairing defenseman in his own right, defense is the position that has really taken a hit in recent years for the Bols. They just signed Erik Cernak to an eight-year contract as he is the best right-handed defenseman on the team. The defense corps is rounded out by Darren Raddysh, Nick Perbix, and Calvin de Haan. They also have Haydn Fleury and Zach Bogosian as additional depth. The fact that they will need to play one of those defensemen in the top four all season is worrying. And if one of Sergachev or Hedman misses a lengthy period of time with an injury, the team is in trouble.

GOALTENDING

The Lightning live or die on the back of superstar goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Russian netminder has been one of, if not the best, goalies in the league over the last half-decade. Last season, he put up a record of 34-22-4 with a 2.65 goals against average and a .915 save percentage. While there was no cause for concern regarding his play in the regular season, the 29-year-old struggled mightily in the playoffs.

During the six-game series against the Maple Leafs, Vasilevskiy put up a 3.56 GAA and .875 SV%. Those are awful numbers whichever way you slice it, and it makes you wonder if, like Hedman, Vasilevskiy has simply played too much hockey over the last five years and ran out of gas. Luckily for them both, the silver lining is that because of their short-lived playoff run, they had the chance to have a long and relaxing summer and should be the most rested they’ve been in four years.

Another aspect of the team that took a hit due to their cap troubles is the backup goalie position. The Lightning haven’t been able to spend much more than the league minimum for their second goalie and this year will be no different. Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois signed Jonas Johansson to a two-year deal at league minimum in free agency. He has historically struggled in the NHL and never put up good numbers through any meaningful stretch of games. He had good stats in the AHL last year with the Colorado Eagles, with a .920 SV%. This is a big gamble by Brisebois to see if Johansson can be a reliable NHL backup, but when you have no cap space, what choice do you have?

COACHING

As crazy as it sounds, Jon Cooper has been behind the bench in Tampa Bay for a full decade. The next longest-tenured coach is Mike Sullivan with the Pittsburgh Penguins who joined them two and a half years after Cooper was hired by the Lightning. Cooper will be immortalized as the greatest coach in Lightning franchise history as he has led them to two Stanley Cups, four final appearances, six conference final appearances, and made the playoffs in nine out of 11 seasons.

Cooper has two years remaining on his contract and there is every indication that he will finish it behind the Lightning bench. He has a knack for getting the best out of his players and doing it in a gentlemanly way. The goal this season will be to offset their lack of depth with exceptional play from the key players as well as their sometimes subpar replacements.

ROOKIES

Ah rookies, remember those? Chances are if you’re a Lightning fan you have long forgotten what it feels like to have high-caliber rookies on the roster. That’s the reality of being a perennial Cup contender and trading away draft picks to buy a longer championship window at nearly every trade deadline.

Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff gave the Lightning prospect pool a D grade in his 2023-24 prospect pool breakdown. Their best prospect is Ethan Gauthier who was a recent second-round pick and put up solid numbers in the QMJHL last year but won’t play in the NHL for at least another couple of years. The Lightning prospect who probably has the highest odds of playing in the NHL this year is goaltender Hugo Alnefelt.

Alnefelt played the 2022-23 season with the Syracuse Crunch in his sophomore professional season. After he struggled during his rookie season, Alnefelt had a nice rebound when he posted a 17-12-2 record with the Crunch this past year along with a 2.77 GAA and .904%. He’s still young at 22 years old and the Lightning probably want him to spend some more time in the AHL before he makes the jump to The Show. However, if one of Vasilevskiy or Johansson sustains an injury at any point this season, Alnefelt is the next man up. He’s also good insurance if the Johansson gamble doesn’t work out as planned and they need a replacement.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. Will the Steven Stamkos contract situation become a distraction? The Lightning captain recently made some public remarks that he is disappointed he didn’t have any contract talks with the team. He has one year remaining on his deal but the question is, will this become a harmful distraction? It would probably be best for both sides to come together during the season and hammer out a new contract as fast as possible.

2. Will Tampa be able to hold off the up-and-coming teams in the division? For many years now, the Lightning, Maple Leafs, and Bruins (and occasionally the Florida Panthers) have had a stranglehold on the top three spots in the division. That is likely going to change over the next couple of seasons. The Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, and Detroit Red Wings are hot on their heels and may even be better than the Lightning in certain aspects such as overall depth. The Lightning certainly have the skill to rule the division yet again but it remains to be seen whether they’ll be able to pull it off as other teams attempt to overtake them.

3. Which version of Andrei Vasilevskiy will we see this year? Vasilevskiy had a decent regular season last year but imploded in the playoffs. If the Lightning are going to edge the Sabres, Senators, Red Wings, and Panthers in the standings they’ll need strong goaltending from the Russian netminder. The team probably needs a .920 SV% from Vasilevskiy this year, and with a slightly weaker defense corps that could be difficult. He is the biggest X-factor for the Lightning this year.

PREDICTION

The Atlantic Division is shaping up to be very interesting this year and the Lightning will be in the thick of it. This season, one could make the argument that any team besides the Montreal Canadiens has a legitimate chance of making the playoffs. It will be a slugfest from October to April and the standings in April could look very different than this past season.

The Lightning are a team filled with living legends such as Stamkos, Point, Vasilevskiy, Hedman, and Sergachev, and any team with a core that good should make the postseason every year. There’s no reason to believe that will change this year and they will finish in the top three of the division yet again. A conservative estimate would be that they’ll finish with somewhere around the 98 points they had last season. And once they’re in the playoffs, who knows? Maybe the longer offseason pays off and they can make one last run for the Cup.