Tampa Bay Lightning season preview
For the first time in a long time, the Tampa Bay Lightning had an extended summer after losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. For some odd reason, the Lightning seem to be a bit underrated going into the 2023-24 campaign. As long as Tampa Bay has Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, and Andrei Vasilevskiy, this team is going to be competitive.
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Offense
Tampa Bay has been a strong offensive team for quite some time now, and that narrative did not change last season. The Lightning finished eighth in goals per game (3.41) while also having the third-highest scoring chances per 60 (33.91). Point may have had the quietest 51-goal season in NHL history, and of course, Kucherov put up another incredible offensive season. Tampa might not be as deep as they have been offensively due to the departures of Ross Colton, Pat Maroon, Alex Killorn, Corey Perry, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, but they’ll be just fine feeding off of their first line and very successful man-advantage unit that finished third last season.
Defense
The 2022-23 season was a down year for the Lightning, defensively speaking. That could partially be due to the exhaustion of three straight years of runs to the Stanley Cup Final. A long summer could be very beneficial to this group, which has a strong defensive core that is highlighted by Victor Hedman and Mikhail Sergachev.