Have the Rumors of Tampa Bay's Demise Been Greatly Exaggerated?

The penultimate Saturday of the NHL regular season began with three teams with a chance to join the NHL's Sweet 16. In the West, the Jets, Golden Knights, Stars, and Avalanche are in. In the East, the Capitals, Hurricanes, and Maple Leafs are in. Three others could increase that total from seven to ten, and one of those three was the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts needed just one point, but they had two ways to get in before they took the ice. One of them involved the first game of the 13-game Saturday: the Rangers and Devils facing off.

Tampa Bay needed anything other than the Rangers winning in regulation. While the first was quiet, the noise came in the second and it all came from the Devils. New Jersey was up 2-0, so the score was on their side. Even if the Rangers tied it, the score would be on their side if regulation ended tied. That would not be a factor. The Devils absolutely owned the sputtering Rangers, a 4-0 win over their longtime foes, and that result placed the Tampa Bay Lightning into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Tampa Bay has had one hell of a stretch, haven't they? Since the NHL switched to this current playoff format in 2013-14, the Lightning have reached the playoffs 11 times in those 12 seasons. Out of those 11 appearances, they reached the Final Four five of those times, with four of those five seeing the Bolts in the Stanley Cup Final. Of course, we all know the heart of that stretch is the three straight SCF appearances following that 2019 embarrassment--winning in 2020 and 2021 and falling two wins short of a three-peat in 2022. After winning 11 straight playoff series, Tampa Bay hasn't won a playoff series. Following their loss in the 2022 Final, they were ousted in Round 1 by the Toronto Maple Leafs, and last year saw the Bolts dominated by the Florida Panthers in Round 1.

Many, myself included, saw last year's beating as the definitive end of the Lightning's impressive run. After all, the Bolts were one of the Wild Cards last year, and had been stuck in the Wild Card standings for a good bit, and were even behind the line briefly. Boy, were we off.

Nikita Kucherov's doing that thing again. We all remember last year when the race or the Ross and the Hart was down to Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon. Kucherov finished as the points leader and took the Ross, but the Hart, thankfully, went to MacKinnon. I myself figured that, while Kucherov is still a beast, he wouldn't be in the thick of the race. Boy, was I off. Kucherov has been on a monstrous tear following the Four Nations break, and now, here we go again. Kucherov and MacKinnon, take two. Kucherov is three points behind the lead, but the total is impressive: 111 points (33 G/78 A). Still can't believe the man had one hundred assists last year. That's some 1980s hockey right there.

It still shocks me that the Bolts let Steven Stamkos go. He was the heart of that Bolts team, was part of that good group that led the team to those Cups, but they didn't keep him. Now, I didn't think that would be a deterrent to the team. After all, they still had Kucherov, Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, Victor Hedman, and that Andrei Vasilevskiy guy. They also snagged Jake Guentzel last year, and in this year's deadline, they traded for Oliver Bjorkstrand, and got Yanni Gourde back. The Bolts are still strong, no doubt about it.

Right now, Tampa Bay is in that Atlantic Division Top 3 with their in-state rivals, the Florida Panthers, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It does look like we'll get the Battle of Florida in the playoffs for the fourth time in five years; holy moley, has that become a rivalry or what? Remember: Florida has been represented in every Cup Final played in this decade. It was the Bolts in the first three, and the last two featured the Panthers. Florida is threatening to become what the province of Alberta was in the 80s. I know this much: the Bolts being in the playoffs makes for some very interesting hockey for sure.