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The Tampa Bay Lightning have been an elite team in the NHL for nearly a decade. They made the Stanley Cup Final in 2015, and they followed that appearance with two Stanley Cup titles in 2020 and 2021.
There is little doubt that their core players have allowed them to stay at or near the top of the NHL for years. There is little reason to think that Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Viktor Hedman, Mikael Sergachev and Andrei Vasilevskiy won't play well enough to help the Lightning remain a playoff team in the Eastern Conference.
However, when the core members of the team played key roles in back-to-back Stanley Cup titles and helped the team get back to the championship round in 2022, a mere appearance in the playoffs is not good enough.
The Lightning was a third-place team in the Atlantic Division last year, finishing behind the record-setting Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The regular season was not impressive and head coach Jon Cooper lost his patience with the team on more than one occasion. However, when the playoffs started, many thought the Lightning would return to their top form once the postseason got underway.
Instead, the Lighting found themselves eliminated in the first round by the Maple Leafs. It was a shocking turn of events, as the Leafs had not won a playoff series since 2004. If the record-setting Bruins had not also been defeated in the first round by the Florida Panthers, the Lightning's demise would have been one of the biggest stories of the postseason.
Adjustments made in the offseason
As the shock of that loss dissipated through the summer, general manager Julien BriseBois had to start retooling a team that was no longer at the top of its game.
He had the most difficult of assignments since the team for a number of reasons, starting with the team's salary-cap issues.
Yes, he still has championship-caliber players on his roster, but the supporting cast has taken a major hit in recent season. During the offseason, BriseBois had to say goodbye to forward Alex Killorn, who wanted to end his career in a Tampa Bay uniform. Killorn signed a 4-year deal with the Anaheim Ducks, and he will not end his career with the Lightning
Tampa Bay also had to part company with Pat Maroon, who had played a key role in the team's 2 championship seasons as well as the one won by the St. Louis Blues in 2019. Maroon is not a fast skater nor a big-time scorer, but he carried a lot of depth and weight for the Lightning. Presumably, he will now do the same thing for the Minnesota Wild.
Additions to the roster
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BriseBois has tried to remake the Tampa Bay roster with a number of offseason signings. He has brought in Conor Sheary, Luke Glendening and Josh Archibald in an attempt to strengthen the bottom 6.
Sheary is a hard-working and efficient player who scored 15 goals and added 22 assists last year with the Washington Capitals. Sheary spent the last 3 seasons in the nation's capital and has exceeded the 20-goal mark once in his career. That was during the 2016-17 season when he notched 23 goals and 30 assists while playing with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Glendending appears to be a fourth-line center who will throw his body around in an attempt to make plays, but he is not a scorer. He had just 3 goals and 3 assists in 70 games last year with the Dallas Stars.
Josh Archibald had 6 goals and 6 assists with the Penguins a year ago, and he appears to be a fourth line player if he is good enough to make the roster.
It's clear that BriseBois has made some moves to augment his team, but it's not clear if those moves are enough to upgrade the team.
Upgrading the roster
If the Lightning is going to get back to elite status, BriseBois still has to make additional moves to give the team a stronger finishing touch with its so-called bottom-six players. Sheary, Glendening and Archibald are all effort players, but they don't have the skill needed to get the job done consistently.
One of the players the Lightning could go after is Conor Garland of the Vancouver Canucks. The 27-year-old scored 17 goals and 29 assists last year, and he has shown a propensity to make plays around the net. He had a career-high 22 goals in 2019-20 and he has more offensive skill than the players BriseBois ha already brought in.
Additional moves may need to be made, but bringing Garland in would be a solid addition for the Lightning.
