The Tampa Bay Lightning saw their streak of three straight Stanley Cup Finals come to an unceremonious end this year, as they fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. The goal remains the same after a long offseason, though: get back to the Cup.

The question is: can the Lightning get back to their previous highs? With even more changes to the roster, they're stars another year older, continued salary cap problems and other Eastern Conference teams loading up, it's going to be a very difficult task. This team has overcome the odds before, though, and is capable of doing so again.

With that said, here is Tampa Bay's biggest roster concern as the NHL offseason winds down.

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Lightning's biggest roster concern deep into 2023 NHL free agency

Lack Of Depth

Tampa Bay's star power has never been in doubt throughout their entire run, and that still holds true today. With Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point up front, Victor Hedman on the blue line and Andrei Vasilevsky in net, the Lightning still have one of the most talented cores in the NHL.

The questions aren't with them, but with the depth around them. Tampa Bay thrived on a loaded top-to-bottom lineup when it won back-to-back cups, but that lineup has suffered significant losses over the past few years. As an exercise, let's look at the last three seasons and see all the key players the Lightning have lost.

  • 2021 Offseason: Barclay Goodrow, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, Blake Coleman, David Savard, Luke Schenn
  • 2021-22 Season: Taylor Raddysh, Boris Katchouk, Mathieu Joseph
  • 2022 Offseason: Ryan McDonagh, Jan Rutta, Ondrej Palat
  • 2022-23 Season: Cal Foote, Vladislav Namestnikov
  • 2023 Offseason: Ross Colton, Corey Perry, Ian Cole, Alex Killorn, Pat Maroon, Brian Elliott

We're admittedly stretching the definition of “key player” here, as this is essentially everyone who was a regular in the lineup. Nonetheless, it goes to show how much depth the Lightning have lost over the past few years, and it's noticeable in every aspect of the team.

Starting with the forward group, Tampa Bay has essentially had to overhaul its bottom six twice in the last three years.With this current group, the Lightning don't have nearly the same amount of depth scoring as guys like Gourde, Coleman and Colton provided them. The top six are also feeling the effects of these losses with staples like Palat and Killorn moving on.

The lack of depth on defense is even more noticeable. Last year's losses especially hurt, as McDonagh was arguably Tampa Bay's best defensive blue-liner and Rutta was a solid partner for Hedman. This lack of depth reared its ugly head in the playoffs, especially with Hedman and Erik Cernak nursing injuries, and played a huge role in the loss to Toronto.

The top four still, featuring Hedman, Cernak, Mikhail Sergachev and Nick Perbix, is still good heading into this season. However, the third pairing looks really rough and is likely going to feature plenty of shuffling throughout the year.

Then there's the goaltending. In fairness, the Lightning don't need an amazing backup alongside Vasilevsky, but they need someone to take the load off. Elliott did a commendable job of that in 2021-22, but the 38-year-old's play took a hit last season.

This offseason, though, the Lightning made a questionable move, at best, to replace him. They signed 27-year-old goalie Jonas Johansson, who has a career save percentage of .886 and a goals against average of 3.35. If the Lightning are truly going into the season with Johansson as the backup, that's a huge concern.

If Tampa Bay is to get back to another cup, it will be on the back of its stars. The depth around them simply has too many questions to feel optimistic about right now.