The Tampa Bay Lightning have won a pair of individual awards this year, including the Jack Adams and Vezina Trophies. But the metric that really matters is playoff wins and losses, and that's where the Bolts have fallen short.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have been one of the NHL’s most accomplished teams in recent years, racking up back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021. Also, they’ve made the playoffs every season since the 2016-17 campaign.
Thus, in many regards, the Lightning have done about as well as any team can hope to in the parity-filled NHL.
However, for the past four seasons, the Lightning have been flushed out of the playoffs in the first round – including this season, when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Bolts in seven games.
So, despite the Lightning winning numerous individual awards this off-season – including coach Jon Cooper winning the Jack Adams Trophy, goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy winning the Vezina Trophy, and right winger Nikita Kucherov a finalist for the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award – Tampa Bay really has nothing to show for it in the metric that matters most, which is post-season wins and losses.
Tampa Bay’s success with individual awards didn’t end with Cooper and Vasilevskiy, or even Kucherov being up for a pair of trophies. Center Anthony Cirelli was runner-up for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. But it was all a small consolation for the Bolts, as they failed to win their most important games despite finishing second in the Atlantic Division in the regular season, with a 50-26-6 record.
Do you want your players to have success as individuals? Sure you do. If you have enough individual success stories, that’s going to bleed over into the team dynamic. So Lightning fans should feel good seeing Vasilevskiy, Cooper and others receive their flowers.
Still, Bolts GM Julien BriseBois isn’t going to be happy with his group. BriseBois doubled down on the players he recently won Cups with, including re-acquiring defenseman Ryan McDonagh and center Yanni Gourde.
However, nostalgia only gets you so far, and the Lightning need to re-evaluate the lineup and see what tweaks or larger moves have to happen to get this team out of the first round and deeper into the post-season.
Indeed, even with solid support up front with Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel, the Lightning haven’t been able to get out of the first round since going to the Cup final in 2021-22.
The Bolts currently have $13.1-million in salary cap space. But if they’re going to sign UFA defenseman Darren Raddysh to a contract extension, they’re going to use much of that cap space on him.
Tampa Bay also has to worry about captain and defenseman Victor Hedman, who missed the entire post-season due to a personal leave of absence.
Regardless, BriseBois has to be beating the bushes this summer for the depth his team will need to keep pace in the highly competitive Atlantic Division.
The Canadiens were able to match the speed and skill of the Lightning in the first round of this year’s playoffs. So ideally, BriseBois needs to improve his depth – particularly on 'D' if Raddysh leaves, as well as the Bolts' backup goaltending situation.
All the individual awards add up to very little if they’re not accompanied by team awards, and the only one that matters is the Stanley Cup.
So the Lightning have to come into the 2026-27 season with the attitude that no individual award will atone for another early playoff exit.
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