The Tampa Bay Lightning have been one of the most successful teams in the NHL. As they prepare for the start of the 2025-26 season, they have secured a spot in the playoffs in each of the last eight seasons. During that time, they earned back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021.
Despite all their success, they have been supplanted as the top team in their home state by the Florida Panthers. The Miami-area team has won the Stanley Cup in each of the past two seasons.
Head coach Jon Cooper appears to have another strong team this year. The Lightning have perhaps the best line in the sport with Brayden Point at center, Nikita Kucherov at right wing and high scoring Jake Guentzel at left wing.
Kucherov is one of the NHL's best scorers. He belongs in a class with Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl along with Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche.
Kucherov is an outstanding skater who sees the ice extremely well. He scored 37 goals and led the league in assists with 84 and points with 121 a year ago. Kucherov positions himself in the elite scoring areas and he is able to create top scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates.
Point is one of the best and fastest skaters in the league. He benefits greatly from playing with Kucherov and he scored 42 goals and 40 assists last season. He connected on a league-best 22.2 percent of his shots.
Guentzel is one of the best shooters in the league. He has a whistling snap shot that has been fairly deadly during his nine-year career. He scored 41 goals and added 39 assists last year.
Kucherov, Point and Guentzel are not x-factors for the Lightning. They are team's stars. Yanni Gourde could turn out to be the team's biggest x-factor this season.
Lightning needs players like Gourde who can do the dirty work
Gourde was reacquired by the Lightning at last year's trade deadline. He was with the team during the two Stanley Cup years and he has played 10 years in the NHL, and the first six years of his career were with the Lightning. However, he was left unprotected in the 2021 expansion draft and he was selected by the Seattle Kraken
As the Lightning were finishing their 2024-25 regular season in second place in the Adams Division, Cooper saw his team bring Gourde back.
Tampa Bay lost its first-round series in five games, so Gourde did not have much of an impact. However, he is scheduled to serve as the center on the third line, and that means Cooper will be counting on him quite a bit in 2025-26.
Gourde will not be expected to come close to the high scorers on the team, but production that includes 15 goals and 35 assists would be solid for the Lightning. Gourde had 14 goals and 34 assists for the Kraken in 2022-23. He has exceeded the 20-goal mark three time in his career.
Gourde has to play solid defense for the Lightning as he is likely to be matched up with the opponents' top line on multiple occasions. Gourde knows how to take opposing centers off their preferred spots and can limit their production. This is especially helpful when facing Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Gourde also does a solid job in the face off circle. He was held to a 46.9 success rate last year with the Kraken and Lightning, but he won 50.8 percent of his faceoffs the season before.
Gourde does not have to do it alone
Gourde will be playing with right wing Mtchell Chaffee and left wing Oliver Bjorkstrand. Cooper will be counting on that line to shut down the top scorers of most opponents. Chaffee has good size at 6-1 and 204 pounds and he scored a career high 12 goals last year. Bjorkstrand is more of an offensive threat that Chaffee. He has scored 20 goals or more in 7 of his last 8 seasons.
The other x-factor for the Lightning is likely to be in goal. Andrei Vasilevskiy is one of the elite goaltenders in the league and he remains the team's No. 1 puck stopper. However, backup Jonas Johannson never played more than 24 games in any of his six seasons. He figures to see at least that much action this season since the league has a compact schedule because it will shut down during the Olympics.
Johannson has never been more than ordinary. He was 12-7-5 in the 2023-24 season with a 3.37 goals against average as well as an .890 save percentage. Cooper will need Johannson to step up this season.
