Welcome to the 2024-25 NHL hockey season, everyone. That off-season was just way too long. Hopefully, with a little more success, and a deeper run in the playoffs, next summer won’t drag on quite as much. After a couple of first-round exits, the Tampa Bay Lightning are hoping they’ve found the correct combination for getting back into serious Stanley Cup contention. Lucky for us, the solution to their problems is relatively simple – keep the puck out of the net.
We know this may shock you, but as those goals allowed numbers increased, the Lightning’s success in the postseason has decreased. On one hand, it’s part and parcel for a team with sustained success as other team’s love to add players from Stanley Cup-winning teams. Defense is a team concept, and as a team is drained of its complimentary players, defense more so than offense is affected. Offense usually comes from the top, and the Lightning, like teams before them, have been careful to keep their top-end scorers (or, as is the case with Steven Stamkos, replace them with comparable players). Finding those players that can replace middle-six forwards that provide solid defensive play seems to be a bit harder, especially with a salary cap.
That’s been the struggle for Julien BriseBois over the past three off-seasons. The forwards he has brought in just haven’t quite gotten the job done. He’s actually done alright in replacing the offensive production despite losing key players like Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat, but it’s been the Barclay Goodrows, Yanni Gourdes, and Blake Colemans that he hasn’t found yet.
Is there any reason to believe he solved the problem this season? The answer is a definitive maybe. The major July 1st moves he made resembled the moves he’s made in the past two off-seasons. Zemgus Girgensons and Cam Atkinson are both veteran forwards who play tough fore-checking style games. They know what they’re getting with Girgensons, who will be a fourth-line grinder in the mold of Tyler Motte. Atkinson is a bit more of a question mark as he struggled to recover from injury last season, but he does have a long track record of solid play under a notoriously defensive coach in John Tortorella.
The biggest moves for Mr. Brisebois came prior to the start of free agency, though. While the rest of the league was still enjoying playoff hockey, the Lightning general manager began the reconstruction of his defense by re-acquiring Ryan McDonagh. The fan favorite returns to the scene of his greatest success and provides the Bolts with a true stay-at-home defenseman on the second pairing.
With McDonagh in tow, Mr. BriseBois traded away the 26-year-old defenseman who had shown flashes of being a top-pairing defender over the past two seasons. Mikhail Sergachev will get the chance to prove he can lead a defense, but it will be in the mountains of Utah instead of on the beaches of the greater Tampa area. In exchange, the Lightning received a somewhat younger version of Sergachev in JJ Moser and a potential second-line center of the future in Conor Geekie.
With Moser and McDonagh added to the blueline, the defensive corps look to be a lot stronger than last year’s grouping. The top four of Hedman, Moser, McDonagh, and Erik Cernak can run with any top-four in the league, while the third pairing will consist of a rotation of Darren Raddysh, Nick Pebix, and Emil Lilleberg to begin the season. If nothing else, there is a sense of consistency from year-to-year that we haven’t seen over the past few seasons.
Yes, McDonagh is two years older than he was the last time he was in Tampa, but based on his play last year, he hasn’t lost too much. If he can recapture any of the magic that he had with Cernak the first time around, that is a huge boost to that unit. Unlike last year where the pairings were constantly changing, there should be some stability this year. Moser on the right side is a bit of a gamble, but he has done it in previous seasons with some success.
Offensively, the 5v5 issue also raises its weary head. Overall the Lightning offense has kept chugging along over the years, never ranking below eighth overall in goals scored per 60 minutes since 2019-20. However, there is a little smoke and mirrors to that as a very, very, very good power play has bolstered things over the last couple of seasons.
Unlike their overall offense, the 5v5 offense has dropped in the rankings from first overall in 2019-20 to sixteenth in 2023-24. Over an 82-game season, a strong power play can mask issues at 5v5 and carry a team to the playoffs. However, in the postseason, when those chances dry up, and a team faces stauncher penalty kill units, the advantage of a strong power play unit dwindles. That has been the issue the Lightning have faced over the last two seasons. They just can’t hang with the other teams when the numbers on the ice are equal.
That, more than any other reason, can be used as the justification to sign a very big check over to Jake Guentzel while suffering the blowback from letting Steven Stamkos line dance his way to Nashville. Guentzel produces more offense at 5v5 than Stamkos does.
Just looking over those numbers from the past three seasons and the swap of players is completely justifiable. You just have to remove any context about letting a franchise icon walk over a couple of million dollars, the effect of losing said icon and captain in the locker room, and the fact that you know have to change that elite power play that has been propping up your offense for the better part of two seasons.
Make no mistake, the Lightning power play will still be good. Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, and Victor Hedman will make sure of that. However, the threat of Stamkos’ one-timer from the left circle was a huge factor in spreading out the defense. That threat has been removed, and Guentzel’s skills as an offensive player are different than Stamkos’. It’s not that he’s worse or better, he is just different since he likes to play in front of the net a little bit more.
The Bolts have tried a few different looks in the preseason, but finding the right combination will likely take a little while. In the meantime, the 5v5 scoring should hopefully help balance things out. That, however, is also a work in progress once you look past the top line of Guentzel, Point, and Kucherov. Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli should be staples on the second line and good for 35-40 5v5 goals between them. Finding someone who can play with them regularly is the second biggest issue the Lightning have to figure out.
If they can solidify the top two lines, the bottom two can be mixed and matched together in whatever order Coach Cooper wants to without too much issue. The hopes of the fan base is that Geekie assumes that role. The Lightning won’t rush him into it, but if he plays like he has all preseason, he could force his way into the position. He has size and a scoring touch. He also doesn’t sacrifice defense for offense, and combining him with Cirelli and Hagel will give opposing coaches match-up nightmares.
The bottom-six has improved its speed over the last two seasons, and a healthy Conor Sheary could go a long way to helping this team out. Last season was pretty much a wash for the veteran as he battled injuries for a majority of the year. If he can find even a semblance of the game he had in Washington and Pittsburgh, it’ll be a big boost for the Lightning’s depth at forward. If he doesn’t, expect the Lightning to start trying some of their young Syracuse forwards in the line-up.
The goaltending begins and ends with Andrei Vasilevskiy starting the season healthy and with a bit of a chip on the shoulder. After missing the first twenty games of last year and seeing some other netminders move past him in the eyes of the media, he will be out there looking to remind everyone that he is an elite goalie in this league. As much as we talk about the other aspects of this team, getting Vezina-quality goaltending from Vasilevskiy will be the key factor in the Lightning returning to the top of the table in the NHL.
For the first time since 2018-19, the Lightning aren’t going to be written in as a playoff team. Yes, the odds are in favor of them making it, but it’s not a given. A brief look at the Atlantic has Florida and Toronto in the top two spots. If all goes well for the Bolts they should be in the running for the third spot at the very least, or a wild card spot. The Atlantic Division continues to improve, though. Boston is going to be Boston. Detroit will be better. Buffalo will be better. Ottawa, in theory, should be better. Montreal, well Montreal is going to be fun to watch.
Add in the mess that is the Metro Division and if the Lightning find themselves in a wild card fight, it will be chaos. The Bolts can’t afford to give any games away this year. It took a record season from Nikita Kucherov last year along with a lot of career seasons from players like Nick Paul, Anthony Cirelli, and Brayden Point for the Bolts to make it in. Can they duplicate that success? If Kucherov only has a great year instead of a historic one, will that be the difference in making or missing the postseason? It very well could be.
