NHL Summer Splash Rankings: No. 25, Tampa Bay Lightning

The Hockey News’ NHL summer splash rankings are in full swing, with the Tampa Bay Lightning coming in 25th place.

We’re focusing on each NHL team’s off-season, weighing in on the teams that improved, stayed the same and got worse this off-season. We’ll be breaking down all additions and departures, including hirings and firings.

This isn’t about who had the best or worst off-season, although there are some exceptions if a team did more or less than expected to support their core.

You can see the teams that finished beneath the Lightning at the bottom. Now, let’s focus on the state of the Bolts.

Additions

Pontus Holmberg (LW), Boris Katchouk (LW), Sam O’Reilly (C)

The Breakdown: The Lightning made their big moves during the season, re-acquiring veteran center Yanni Gourde as well as right winger Oliver Bjorkstrand from the Seattle Kraken for their playoff run this past spring.

Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois signed Gourde to a six-year contract extension with an average annual value of $2.33 million – terrific value for a proven winner.

In terms of NHL-level players added this summer, the Bolts only brought on former Toronto Maple Leafs left winger Holmberg. The 26-year-old Swede was mostly a bottom-six forward for the Maple Leafs last year, posting modest career highs in assists (12) and points (19) in 68 regular-season games.

Holmberg was a non-factor in the playoffs, generating just a single assist in 12 games. He’ll again be a third- or fourth-liner for Tampa Bay.

Katchouk, 27, was one of the Lightning’s additions signed to a two-way deal. He gets mentioned here because he’s played 176 career NHL games, but he spent all of this past season in the AHL, and his career high in the NHL is 16 points in 58 games in 2022-23.

O’Reilly, 19, is a prospect center acquired in the Isaac Howard trade with the Edmonton Oilers. He’s a smart player who could make the bottom six in the future, but he’s not expected to graduate to the NHL in 2025-26.

Departures

Nick Perbix (D), Cam Atkinson (RW), Luke Glendening (C), Isaac Howard (RW)

The Breakdown: BriseBois spent most of his cap space to keep his team largely intact, but the Lightning did lose some experience on the free-agent market.

Veteran defenseman Perbix signed with the Nashville Predators. He was a third-pair blueliner for Tampa Bay, averaging only 14:41 of ice time in 74 games. But he got a significant raise from the Preds, going from $1.125 million this past season to $2.75 million on a two-year deal. That was too rich for BriseBois to accommodate, so the Lightning’s defense corps won’t be quite as deep next season.

Right winger Atkinson was mainly a fringe player this past year, with only four goals and nine points in 39 games. He was a frequent healthy scratch and was assigned to the AHL at times.

Veteran center Glendening also appears to be moving on. The 36-year-old was a fourth-liner for Tampa Bay, averaging only 10:47 per game in 77 games. Neither Atkinson nor Glendening is irreplaceable, but their departure does affect the Lightning’s overall depth up front.

Ultimately, while things could’ve gone worse in the off-season for Brisebois and the Bolts, they did a decent-enough job keeping together a group that Lightning brass obviously still believes in. And the departures they did have aren’t going to hurt their bottom line. Speaking of bottom lines…

The Bottom Line

The Lightning were ousted in the first round of last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs by the back-to-back defending Cup-champion Florida Panthers. But there’s still plenty to like about Tampa Bay – whether it’s superstar sniper Nikita Kucherov, elite forwards Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel, accomplished defensemen in Victor Hedman, Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh, or superstar goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. You can’t credibly argue that’s not an impressive group.

Keeping Gourde was a priority for BriseBois to ensure there’s proven talent in the bottom six. Signing Hedman to a contract extension last July that kicks in this upcoming season was huge, and not having to trade core talent for cap space is a plus as well.

Did Tampa Bay get better this summer? No. Did they stay the same? For the most part, yes – although there is, in our estimation, enough evidence to argue they got marginally worse for this upcoming season than their playoff roster in the grand scheme of things.

Because of those reasons and the tight margin between the clubs that stayed largely the same, they’re in the bottom quarter of the NHL summer splash rankings.

We fully expect the Lightning to be a playoff team in the 2025-26 campaign. That said, we’re also not sure Tampa Bay will be able to get out of the first round in next spring’s playoffs.

BriseBois has never been afraid to make big moves in-season, so that may be in the cards for the Bolts next year.