Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
There is a method to the order in which this series has been presented. It started with the teams that missed the playoffs entirely. It continues with the teams that made the playoffs, but lost in the first round. It will then continue onward with the teams that lost in the second round, and then the Conference Finals, and then eventually the Vegas Golden Knights as the Stanley Cup Final loser.
I am trying to stick with that order, and with six of the first-round teams already written about that means I need to get to the Tampa Bay Lightning sooner or later.
My problem with writing about the Lightning is I am just not sure what, exactly, the problem is. Or if there even is a problem.
Most of these teams are easy to write about when it comes to picking out an angle or a topic. Most teams have an obvious flaw, an obvious area where things went wrong, an obvious direction they are heading in (or should be heading in), an obvious problem or have made some sort of significant move that could change all of those things.
But I am a little lost on the Lightning.
On one hand, this team is still excellent, and every objective measure validates that.
They won 50 games this past season and accumulated 106 total points in the standings. It is their best regular season performance since their most recent Stanley Cup Final appearance back in the 2021-22 season.
They still have elite individual talent, and swept most of the individual awards across the league this season.
Forward Nikita Kucherov won his second MVP award, and it was well-earned with 130 points and helping to put the team on his back for much of the season.
Andrei Vasilevskiy won his second Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie, and given the often times injured state of the defense in front of him, as well as the fact he saved 24.7 goals above expected (fourth most in the league), it was also well-earned.
Head coach Jon Cooper won his first Jack Adams award as the NHL’s coach of the year, even if it seemed like more of a career achievement award than anything else.
On a team level, they did pretty much everything exceptionally well.
Their all-situations goal-differential was fifth best in the NHL.
During 5-on-5 play they were second-best (behind only the Colorado Avalanche), with a 54.1 percent expected goals share that placed them fourth-best in the NHL.
Even with all of the injuries they had on defense, they also allowed just 2.43 expected goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, the fourth-lowest mark in the league.
Their power play was average, but the penalty kill was elite.
On paper, everything looked like a contender, especially in what seemed to be a wide open Eastern Conference.
But instead of a deep playoff run, it was Tampa Bay’s fourth consecutive first-round loss, losing in seven games to an upstart (and rapidly improving) Montreal Canadiens team.
And it’s not like they were outplayed in the series.
It went seven games, while Tampa Bay held a pretty significant possession and scoring chance advantage on aggregate. Montreal did control a few games and earned its share of wins, but the Lightning also did enough to put themselves in a position to win.
But after losing two overtime games, and a shocking Game 7 on home-ice where they had a 29-9 shots on goal advantage, their season came to an end with another first-round defeat.
Anytime a contending team loses early there is always a push to find somebody to blame. Everybody needs to have their person to point the finger at. But sometimes nobody is at fault. Sometimes there is nobody to blame. Sometimes you just … lose.
It is not even necessarily about bad luck, or puck luck, or bounces not going you way. Sometimes there’s just somebody better than you, or plays better than you, or gets a result. It’s a boring explanation. It doesn’t make it easy to figure out where you go next. But sometimes that is just how sports works.
I feel like that is where Tampa Bay is coming off the 2025-26 season.
Good team. Did everything right. Played well in its seven-game series. Just simply did not win.
As a one-off thing, that is probably easier to explain away. When it comes on the heels of three prior first-round exits, that is probably where people get a little more frustrated. Especially when there is no easy thing to fix and no easy path forward. You either stay the course and keep trying to keep the window open, or you begin massively re-tooling.