For the most part, Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois was true to his word when it came to how the 2026-27 team would look compared to the one that finished the 2025-26 season. It is, for the most part, pretty similar. Even with their big late-night signing of John Carlson, the basic layout of the roster is the same if you flip Carlson for Darren Raddysh, i.e. an offense-first defenseman on the right-side of the ice.
Our way too early guess at how the roster will look:
Forwards:
In essence, Mr. BriseBois replaced Corey Perry and Nick Paul with Jeff Viel and Ilya Mikheyev, which, on paper should be an upgrade.
Neither lights up the scoreboard like a modern-day Teemu Selanne, but they have both done a decent job of suppressing the other team’s offense when they’re on the ice. Mikheyev gives the Lightning a little more speed. The former Blackhawk ranked in the 95th percentile in terms of skating speed in the league. Nick Paul. Well, he was lower on the charts (64th percentile).
Paul also benefitted from more offensive zone starts (42.2% compared to 37%) and had better teammates. This isn’t to say that Paul rode on the coattails of his buddies. He was instrumental to the success of the Lightning over the last few seasons, but, as JBB said in his press conference, it was time for a change of scenery.
Viel won’t bring any offense to the table, but he’s a hard worker that is going to give the Lightning a physical presence in a tough Atlantic Division. And while he’s not the fleetest of skaters, he’s also not Corey Perry.
The bottom-six is going to take some time to figure out, and it won’t be surprising to see Mikheyev get some reps on the second line. We’re keeping Gage Goncalves on the top line for right now because he synced up pretty well. When the trio was together on the ice, the Lightning controlled 55.39% of the shot attempts, with a 60.65% edge in expected goals. They also outscored their opponents 10-5 when the Guentzel, Goncalves, Point combination was out there.
That allows Coach Cooper to put Nikita Kucherov on a line with Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli, a combination that has been their most dangerous over the past two seasons. Mikheyev bumps Zemgus Girgensons off of the Yanni Gourde line, which, with a healthy Pontus Holmberg will be an absolute nightmare to play against. The new winger could also boost their offensive output as 15 of his 18 goals with Chicago last season were at 5v5.
That being said, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Dominic James play his way up to the third line as the season goes on. Conor Geekie and Jakob Pelletier are waiting in the wings for any of the veterans (cough, Girgensons, cough) to play their way out of the line-up.
Are face-offs a concern with this line-up? Yup. It’s one thing that Mr. BriseBois has yet to address. Hoping for better years from Brayden Point or Yanni Gourde isn’t a way to stack the odds in the Lightning’s favor. Would it be shocking to see another forward get moved out off of the roster via a trade? Not really. Nor would it be shocking to see Geekie and Sam O’Reilly start the season in Syracuse.
Defense:
This is where there are still a lot of question marks, mainly in pairings and who eventually makes the roster. Our guess is that Max Crozier, a natural right-shot defenseman edges out Emil Lilleberg and Charle-Edouard D’Astous to get the starting role. That leaves the possibility of D’Astous or Lilleberg being exposed on waivers or traded. It’s a risk that the Lightning have to take now that they’ve signed Carlson for the next couple of seasons.
To begin the season, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Carlson slide into Darren Raddysh’s spot on the top pairing with J.J. Moser. Yes, Victor Hedman is back, and by all accounts, he will be healthy and ready to play when the puck drops for the season opener. Still, it’s hard to bump Moser off of the top spot after the season he had, and, to be honest, he pairs better with Carlson. At this stage in his career, Hedman leans more toward offense than shut-down defense, and pairing him with a similar style of player like Carlson could lead to a lot of odd-skater rushes in the wrong direction.
Having Carlson in the Raddysh spot allows Coach Cooper to balance his pairings at 5v5. The Lightning are likely to have all three duos play similar minutes at even strength. It’s how they deploy them on special teams that will lead to the difference in ice times. Carlson likely draws into the point on the first power play unit to start. While he’s not cracking 100 MPH on a regular basis, he can still get his shot into the mid-90’s, which should do some damage with Nikita Kucherov feeding him one-timers.
McDonagh, Cernak, Hedman, and Crozier will probably eat up most of the short-handed time while Hedman quarterbacks the second power play unit. Having six guys who can play 20 minutes a night isn’t a bad thing on the roster, and gives Coach Cooper some flexibility on a night-in and night-out basis. There may be times when a Hedman-Crozier pairing plays more than Moser and Carlson. Other nights it might be McDonagh and Cernak leading the way. Options are good to have.
Is it an older defense? Yes, but it is still a really good defense. Should the injury bug bite them, they’ll have D’Astous or Lilleberg there to jump in and log some big minutes.
Goaltending:
Perhaps the most interesting note out of the press conference was the fact that Julien BriseBois stated that Dennis Hildeby will be the back-up next season and that they are trying to find Jonas Johansson a “new home”. The 24-year-old has been solid in limited appearances with Toronto over the last two seasons.
For Johansson, well, he just had a pretty bad season. He went 11-10-2 with a 3.29 GAA and .884 SV% while posting a -4.40 GSAx. His struggles down the stretch probably sealed the deal. From January 24th to the end of the season, Johansson went 1-4-1 with a 4.76 GAA, .856 SV%, and -9.12 GSAx. The Lightning don’t need their back-ups to put up Vezina-esque numbers, but they do have to be at least close to league average.
Hildeby should give them that. With Vasilevskiy getting older, and the season a couple of games longer, having a young, up-and-coming netminder to pick up an extra game or two isn’t a bad thing.
If the Bolts can trade Johansson, they can clear his salary, but if that doesn’t come to fruition, they have the cap space and funds to either bury his deal in the AHL, buy him out, or agree to terminate his contract.
Despite not tackling their big needs (a right-shot middle-six forward and a face-off specialist) the Lightning improved their forward unit and their goaltender pairing. The defense is a push, but it was a solid unit last season and should still be a strength in the upcoming season.
There are still some names out there for Mr. BriseBois to fill out the roster on smaller deals. The $3 million or so that they currently have is a nice gap that will help him if he needs to make any in-season additions or adjustments.
It wasn’t quite the first 24 hours that we expected, but the team didn’t hurt itself, and should still be one of the favorites to come out of the Atlantic Division.
