The Tampa Bay Lightning Are Built to Remain Stanley Cup Contenders

For Tampa Bay Lightning players and fans, Wednesday's Game 5 win against the Montreal Canadiens to clinch their second consecutive Stanley Cup will set off months of celebrations before moving on to the 2021-22 season.

General manager Julien BriseBois won't have the luxury of participating in extended festivities. On July 17, all NHL teams (except Vegas) must submit their protection lists for the Seattle expansion draft. Lightning management will have to prepare that list and participate in leaguewide trade discussions before that day. Almost immediately, BriseBois will have to consider what the future of his team will look like.

Through a combination of fortunate circumstances and brilliant maneuvering, BriseBois was able to build a playoff roster that, as Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Dougie Hamilton put it, was "$18 million over the cap or whatever they are." That won't be repeated in 2021-22. 

"If 2020 was the first day of school, 2021 would be the last day," head coach Jon Cooper told the media on July 3. "I think we all know the realities of the sport. Our team's been well-documented. Finally getting over the hump last year and then remarkably being able to stick together for one more crack at it. I don't see the circumstances of what happened last year happening again, and I know the players don't see that."

In some capacity, the Lightning will look different next season. But while it will be the end of an era, the Lightning remain well-positioned to maintain contender status for the foreseeable future. 

The Core Is Here to Stay

Thanks to one brilliant salary dump involving the Ottawa Senators and the opportunity, even if unfortunate, to stash Nikita Kucherov on long-term injured reserve, the Lightning were able to manage the salary cap and keep most of its 2020 Stanley Cup roster intact.

That will not be the case for next season. Even after assuming that unrestricted free agents Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and David Savard will sign elsewhere this summer, the Lightning will still enter the offseason roughly $5 million over the salary cap with a few roster spots still to fill, per CapFriendly. Change is coming in Tampa Bay. Alex Killorn, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Yanni Gourde are among those whose futures are uncertain. 

But unless BriseBois actively chooses to make a major extraction, the nucleus of the team will remain intact. Nikita Kucherov (28) and Brayden Point (25) are under contract next season at relative bargain prices and should be elite contributors for a number of years, while Anthony Cirelli (23) is a capable second-line center. Victor Hedman (30) and Ryan McDonagh (32) are signed long term, while one, if not both, of Eric Cernak (24) and Mikhail Sergachev (23) will stick around to continue to give the team a strong top three on defense.

And in goal, Andrei Vasilevskiy (26) is signed through 2028 and is finally living up to his potential, posting a Vezina-caliber season in 2021 before winning the Conn Smythe trophy this postseason.

Notably missing from this list is Steven Stamkos. Signed through 2024, it wouldn't be wise to predict the team captain's departure. Now 31 and relegated to the wing, he's still a phenomenal goal scorer, but it's fair to wonder, as contract extensions become necessary for Point and others, whether he might be a reluctant cap casualty before his contract expires. For the 2021-22 season, at least, he probably remains an important piece of the core.

The Lightning will inevitably lose a few players who are useful, and BriseBois might need to put some extra effort into avoiding a bigger loss in the Seattle expansion draft. Barring something unforeseen, the team's main drivers should be exempt from the clearing-out effort.

The Continuing Developmental Pipeline

In a salary-cap league, losing capable players is the nature of the beast for the top teams. Cup winners can face a sharp decline when the team either overpays to keep peripheral players or fails to replace them.

No team has displayed more ability to recycle cheap depth over the past five seasons than the Lightning. One contributing factor is the well-thought-out additions of experienced NHL players. BriseBois intelligently brought in Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman in trades, knowing they would be able to contribute over multiple seasons on frugal contracts rather than as pure rentals. Pat Maroon will play his third straight season on a $900K contract next year.

The benefit of building a strong team is that good players looking to win will give up money to join and remain. BriseBois will likely scavenge the free-agent and trade markets for more cheap depth this summer. 

But the bigger boon for Tampa Bay has been its ability to develop from within. Take a look at the many skaters from the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup teams who spent meaningful time with their AHL affiliate in Syracuse.

Author's Own Work

For every Nikita Kucherov or Victor Hedman who is destined to seamlessly integrate into the NHL, there are a lot more prospects for whom making the NHL is not an inevitability. The developmental setups of a given NHL organization can make or break many careers.

The Lightning have proved the best in the league at taking nondescript late-round draft picks and undrafted free agents and slowly building them into players on cheap contracts who are capable of producing in the NHL. For a contending team that will inevitably move draft picks and prospects in pursuit of winning, turning straw into gold at the minor league level, as Tampa Bay has, is prudent.

Talent identification is a big part of that process, but so too is making sure the AHL affiliate is prepared. Syracuse head coach Benoit Groulx has done a phenomenal job the past five seasons and should be on the radars of other NHL teams for a bigger role.

The Lightning have more talent coming through the pipeline. Ross Colton and Mathieu Joseph, who played depth roles for the Lightning during the 2021 Cup win, are deserving of bigger roles next season. Potentially joining them from the AHL are Alexander Barre-Boulet, Boris Katchouk, Otto Somppi and Taylor Raddysh. All four have been marinating in the AHL for a few seasons and have legitimate potential as depth forwards. On defense, 2017 first-round pick Cal Foote has already demonstrated in 35 NHL games that he's up to the standard.

Tampa Bay has no game-breakers on the way, but it already has enough foundational pieces for the immediate future. A few positive contributors who can fill in the gaps are sufficient. 

The Lightning Are Here to stay

The Lightning are not Teflon. They got a number of breaks last offseason that aren't going to be replicated this time around. For BriseBois, the ambition will be to keep Gourde, Palat, Sergachev and Cernak. The loss of any of those four will especially hurt.

Regardless, the team is set up well to keep the momentum going. The players most intrinsic to its success the past two seasons will undoubtedly remain, and the Lightning have a track record for developing unheralded prospects into NHL contributors.

Head coach Jon Cooper, arguably the best in the business, is also a major asset who gets the most out of players and has proved his ability to adjust to circumstances and gameplay around the players available to him.

Phelan Ebenhack/Associated Press

Management will have to roll with the punches this offseason, and it's unlikely the roster will be as stacked as it was in 2021. In fact, it might even take a season or two for the team to recover from the depletion of draft picks and roster losses.

Still, the Lightning remain a healthy organization with much of its backbone still young enough and likely to hang around for years to come. The sun isn't setting. As long as the team sticks to what has made it successful the previous five seasons, the Lightning should be in the mix for the Stanley Cup again next season and will have years beyond to build a new cycle of contention under Kucherov, Point and Vasilevskiy.