Several Lengthy Playoff Runs Raised The Bar Very High For Tampa Bay Lightning

Starting with the spring of 2015 and stretching through last year, the Tampa Bay Lightning made it to at least the conference final six of eight years. Included were four Stanley Cup final appearances and a pair of Cup wins.

While the talent level of the core – Steven Stamkos (33 at the start of next season), Nikita Kucherov (30), Brayden Point (27), Victor Hedman (32), Andrei Vasilevskiy (29), Alex Killorn (34), Anthony Cirelli (26), Erik Cernak (26) and Mikhail Sergachev (25), all of them together the last five years — is immense, lengthy playoff runs can take their toll. That is especially true with the older players.

The salary cap can, and has, taken a toll as well. Ryan McDonagh, Yanni Gourde, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson and Blake Coleman all earned Cup rings with the Bolts. Each contributed greatly to the cause before being traded, not re-signed or left exposed in the most recent expansion draft to provide financial wiggle room.

That is not to say the six-game series loss to Toronto means the window on more banner-raising ceremonies at Amalie Arena in the near future has shut. After all, the Lightning noticeably outperformed the Leafs for lengthy stretches in five of the games with Game 2 (7-2 loss), when Hedman was scratched with an undisclosed injury, serving as the exception. Tampa Bay was also without the services of Cernak since the second period of Game 1. Of course, injuries are part of the equation, especially this time of year.

The bottom line is this spring is one that has been cut short for the Lightning, who were finished while it was still April. That is rare thing along Channelside Drive in Tampa.

Coach Jon Cooper, who took over the Lightning after Guy Boucher was fired late in the 2012-13 season, guided his club to the Cup final in 2015, a six-game loss to Chicago. His team advanced to the conference final in 2016 and 2018, losing in seven games to, respectively, the Penguins and Capitals.

A 2019 sweep by Columbus followed a regular season in which the President’s Trophy-winning Lightning equaled the 1995-96 Red Wings for most wins in the regular season with 62 (bested by Boston’s 65 this season) and their 128 points were fourth-most (now fifth) in league history. (Of course, the hardware presented to the top team in the regular season might as well be made of tinfoil given no winner of the award has hoisted the Stanley Cup since the Blackhawks in 2013.)

While the sweep made for quite an empty feeling and a lengthy off-season, the Bolts, fortified by the trade deadline acquisitions of Coleman and Barclay Goodrow, put it together in the Toronto and Edmonton bubbles in the summer and early autumn of 2020. Tampa Bay then defeated Montreal in 2021 to win a second straight Cup and returned to the final round last year, losing to the Avalanche in six games.

“This team had not lost a playoff series in the Eastern Conference since 2019,” said Cooper, following the series loss to Toronto. “It is 2023. I think there are 31 other teams in the league that would like to have our history here the last 10 years, five years, three years.”

Such a high level of success, especially the past three playoff years, sets the bar very high.

“The run that we have been on the past three years has been amazing,” said Stamkos, in a somber post-Game 6 Tampa Bay locker room. “Anytime you don’t get to that level, it feels like a failure. It’s a very lonely feeling when you’re out this early. With the experience that we have, with the players that we have, the expectation is to make a run every year.”

It will not happen this year. Next year? Well, it would surprise nobody if Killorn played his last game in a Tampa Bay uniform. Killer ($4.45 million), along with soon-to-be 38-year-old Corey Perry ($2 million), 38-year-old Pierre-Edouard Bellemare ($1 million), 38-year-old Brian Elliott ($900,000), 34-year-old Ian Cole ($3 million) and 26-year-old Mikey Eyssimont ($750,000), can be unrestricted free agents. Indeed, general manager Julien Brisebois has more roster maneuvering on his plate.

The continued development of players like Ross Colton and Brandon Hagel, acquired from Chicago at last year’s deadline and a 30-goal scorer in his first full season in Tampa, the promise shown by defensemen Nick Perbix and Darren Raddysh, combined with the core group, though perhaps without Killorn, may keep the window open for another year or two when it comes to lengthy playoff runs. It just doesn’t get any easier.