Why the Tampa Bay Lightning’s glory days are ending

2016 A.D.: Fall of the Chicago Blackhawks empire begins.

Before revelations of dark dealings behind the scenes came to pass years later, they were the decade’s model franchise, winning Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015. As their future Hall of Fame stars got more expensive, they had to throw more and more veteran bodies overboard, relying on cheap depth. They decimated their draft capital in trades and went consecutive drafts without making a first-round pick in 2015 and 2016. A seven-game, first-round loss to the St. Louis Blues in 2016 gave way to a sweep first-round loss to the Nashville Predators in 2017. The Hawks’ lone trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs since was gifted in 2020 when they competed in the COVID bubble tournament with the league’s 23rd-best record and won a series. No one from the Stanley Cup years remains on the roster, which is starting over with 2023 No. 1 overall pick Connor Bedard.

2018 A.D.: Fall of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ empire begins.

After climbing back atop the mountain with consecutive championships in 2016 and 2017, giving them three in the Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin era, the Penguins became increasingly top heavy. With GM Jim Rutherford desperately trying to prop the Stanley Cup window open, Pittsburgh made just one first-round pick from 2015 to 2021. They bowed out to the Washington Capitals in Round 2 of the playoffs. The next year: swept by the New York Islanders in Round 1. After suffering four consecutive opening-round defeats, their playoff streak halted at 16 years when they missed out by a single point in 2022-23.

The Blackhawks’ formula worked perfectly until the top-heavy structure imploded, and it predicted the Penguins’ gradual demise a few years later.

Which brings us to 2023 A.D. and another team that may or may not be following the same path.

Like the Pens and Hawks, this franchise founded its core on multiple homegrown Hall of Fame talents, taken with early first-round draft picks following lean years.

Like the Pens and Blackhawks, this team won multiple championships in a short timeframe and earned mini-dynasty status.

Like the Pens and Blackhawks, this team watched the salary-cap ground beneath it shrink year after year and was forced to throw away crucial contributors, relying on an elite development pipeline to turn seemingly marginal prospects into viable NHLers and replenish its depth.

Like the Pens and Blackhawks, this team eventually decided that first-round draft picks stopped mattering. It has used one in its past four drafts.

And after playing 12 playoff series between 2019-20 and 2021-22, winning 11 of them, the Tampa Bay Lightning lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in four years last spring. They did so icing the NHL’s second-oldest roster at the time. It felt like a potential turning point for the salary-cap era’s latest empire.

The off-season brought minor shuffling of depth from GM Julien BriseBois and little opportunity for major improvements as the extensions for core members Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak kicked in for 2023-24. Alex Killorn, Patrick Maroon and Ross Colton were the latest players from the Lightning’s championship teams to be sent packing, joining a growing list including Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, Ryan McDonagh and Ondrej Palat.

The Bolts, then, were pretty clearly walking the same trail as the Hawks and Penguins. There’s no shame in it: in the case of all three franchises, it resulted in multiple championships. But as we did with Chicago and Pittsburgh, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end in Tampa.

They entered the 2023-24 campaign as only the 11th-oldest team in the NHL, but that was the result of younger depth swapping in low in the lineup rather than making any significant changes to their core. Center Steven Stamkos, right winger Nikita Kucherov and defenseman Victor Hedman were on the wrong side of 30. The “cheap depth” plan works well when your top players are superstars, and Tampa’s core, which also includes center Brayden Point, Sergachev and Andrei Vasilevskiy, remains great, but it’s reaching the juncture at which the ceiling starts to lower ever so slightly. The Pens’ last scoring champion and Hart Trophy winner came in 2013-14. The Hawks’ came in 2015-16. Their superstars, from Crosby to Malkin to Kane to Toews, continued playing at high levels but just not quite “best in the league” levels anymore, and the dwindling depth behind them in the lineup eventually couldn’t make up the difference. Just two years ago, the Bolts boasted seven 20-goal scorers; this year’s roster opened the year with five players who had registered a 20-goal campaign in the last five years.

Then came the Vasilevskiy dagger, a microdiscectomy, announced just before the start of the season, expected to shelf him for at least two months. Four games into their 2023-24 season, the Lightning, have a 2-2-1 record. They have been territorially outplayed, allowing the sixth most shots against per 60 and eighth-most expected goals against per 60 at 5-on-5. After BriseBois gambled with a shaky goaltending depth chart behind Vasilevskiy, Jonas Johansson and Matt Tomkins have combined for an .893 save percentage.

Can we expect the Lightning to pull themselves out of this? Sure, to a degree. They have one of the league’s best, most adaptive coaches in Jon Cooper. They’re still loaded with world-class players at every position. But they might be entering the same purgatory Chicago and Pittsburgh did for several seasons after their peaks: old team, good enough to make the playoffs, no longer deep enough to win multiple rounds, not replenishing with any top-end prospects at the draft.

It will be virtually impossible for Tampa to truly struggle in the seasons to come. Stamkos is a UFA this summer, but they have Kucherov locked up through 2026-2027; Point through 2029-30; Cirelli through 2030-31; Brandon Hagel through 2031-32; Nick Paul through 2028-29; Serchachev and Cernak through 2030-31; Hedman through 2024-25; and Vasilevsky through 2027-28. As those core players age out of their primes in the coming years, though, the Bolts won’t have the cap space or draft capital to support them with high-quality depth. The salary cap projects to rise to as much as $88 million next season, but Tampa has already committed more than $77 in cap space before factoring in a probable Stamkos extension. Thanks to picks traded away in the moves for Hagel in 2022 and Tanner Jeannot in 2023, the Lightning don’t pick in the first round again until 2026.

So don’t be surprised if they slide back in the Atlantic Division pack and become more of a gatekeeper playoff team in the forseeable future, giving upstart higher seeds spirited fights but no longer possessing the steam and talent to make deep runs. The Tampa empire as we know it is starting to decline, but bottoming out won’t happen for years.