The Tampa Bay Lightning’s strong finish to 2025 rolled right into 2026 as they kept piling up the wins and those sweet, sweet Marriott Bonvoy points as they spent a grand portion of the month away from Benchmark International Arena. Nine of their thirteen games were on the road, and two of their trips back home were for single-game home stands. Despite the travel, they managed to keep piling up the points, dropping the full two points only once all month long.

As Coach Jon Cooper pointed out several times throughout the month, they needed to keep winning in order to maintain pace with the other teams atop the Atlantic Division. The Bolts came into the month two points behind the Detroit Red Wings, and finished it two points ahead of them despite having played four fewer games on the season.

More importantly, Tampa Bay solidified their spot in the playoff race.While the gap atop of the division remains close, it’s starting to widen towards the bottom. They ended the month with an 11-point gap over Columbus, the first team outside of the playoffs. A playoff spot isn’t locked up just yet, but most projections have them hovering around 99% to make the post season.

Not a bad bit of business considering the amount of injuries they dealt with, especially on the defense. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

5v5 stats and league-wide rankingsOctober (5-4-2)November (11-3-0)December (7-6-1)January 11-1-1GF/602.48 (18th)3.24 (5th)2.88 (3rd)2.92 (10th)xGF/603.10 (4th)2.87 (5th)2.86 (7th)2.77 (11th)GA/602.48 (15th)2.25 (11th)1.95 (7th)1.60 (2nd)XGA/602.29 (7th)2.65 (19th)2.41 (4th)2.10 (1st)SCF/6028.17 (8th)27.0 (12th)30.14 (5th)30.14 (7th)SCA/6022.40 (2nd)25.56 (11th)23.09 (1st)21.0 (1st)HDCF/6011.32 (16th)11.70 (10th)13.63 (1st)12.05 (11th)HDCA/608.84 (2nd)10.71 (13th)9.09 (1st)9.42 (1st)Save Percentage.907 (15th).915 (9th).923 (9th).925 (5th)Shooting Percentage9.33% (19th)13.14% (2nd)10.20% (4th)10.99% (11th)Stats via Natural Stat Trick

It’s kind of interesting that they scored at a higher rate in January than in December, but they finished with a lower ranking among other teams. Offense in general was a up a bit, which makes the defensive effort even more impressive. Limiting the dangerous chances against went a long way to helping them pull out the wins.

One of the encouraging trends for the team over the month was the fact that they got better as the game wore on. The Lightning allowed 13 first-period goals, 7 second-period goals, and 6 third-period goals. After a couple of seasons struggling in the middle frames, it was their second period dominance which helped the Bolts out in January. While they allowed just the 7 goals, they scored 22 times. Either they erased deficits (they finished the month 2-1-1 when trailing after one) or they built on their leads (5-0-0 when leading after one).

Aiding the offensive effort was their power play. What was a weakness earlier in the year has become a strength. They finished January with a league-best 35.3% success rate, scoring 12 times on 34 chances with Darren Raddysh accounting for 4 of those goals. As one might expect, Nikita Kucherov was a huge part as he recorded a point on 11 of the 12 goals (2 goals, 9 assists). The lone goal he didn’t participate in directly was Brayden Point’s tally against Philadelphia, which came from Jake Guentzel and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

That was also the last play Point took part of as he suffered a lower-body injury on the play. The Lightning pulled out the win, but their offense took a bit of a hit for the rest of the month. Prior to Point’s injury, the Bolts were 5-0 and had scored 28 goals (18 at 5v5). After he was out of the line-up, they went 6-1-1, scoring 23 goals (13 at 5v5) the rest of the way.

Removing the team’s top center and a key part of the top power play unit hurt the team, not only because it removed Point from the line-up, but pulled everyone else up a spot. Anthony Cirelli and Dominic James were bumped up while Nick Paul moved back to the middle of the ice. The team persevered, mainly because the defense kept up (only 15 goals allowed over those 8 games), but the offense struggled to find some consistency at 5v5.

Despite not having Brayden Point in the line-up for half of the month, Nikita Kucherov didn’t slow down. The NHL’s First Start of the Month put up 31 points (9 goals, 22 assists) outpacing Connor McDavid’s 25 points (and McDavid played two more games). Kucherov scored on the power play (2 goals, 9 assists), 5v5 (14 points), and with the empty net (3 goals, 1 assist).

Along with Kucherov, the Bolts had four other players average at least a point a game. They are also starting to get contributions from Yanni Gourde and his linemates. Gourde had 2 goals, 6 assists while Zemgus Girgensons had 1 goal, 5 assists, and Pontus Holmberg had 2 goals. Getting offense from that trio along with their ability to harass opponents is an added bonus.

The sign of a really good team is their ability to win in different ways, and the Lightning used solid defense, exceptional special teams, and outstanding goaltending to pick up their wins. Andrei Vasilevskiy was simply fantastic in January, posting a 9-0-1 record with a .941 SV%, 1.37 GAA, and a 14.26 GSAx. He allowed just 14 goals against the entire month. That’s pretty, pretty good.

Jonas Johansson had just three appearances, but went 2-1-0 with an .857 SV%, 3.39 GAA, and -2.08 GSAx. However, if you take out the Columbus game, the Lightning’s lone loss of the month, and his numbers are a lot better. In his two wins he posted a .902 SV%, 2.01 GAA, and 1.71 GSAx. Considering the Blue Jackets game was at the end of the long road trip, the second game of a back-to-back and Bolts were a bit short-handed due to injuries and illness, that game can be tossed when it comes to the overall performance this month.

Part of the reason the Lightning only gained a few points in the standings was that most of their opponents were out of their division and out of their conference. Nine of their games were against Western Conference opponents, and the four Eastern Conference foes were all from the Metropolitan Division.

How tough was their schedule? Factoring out the amount of miles they traveled to play and some of the weather issues they had to deal with, it was a moderately tough schedule. Only four of the teams they beat are in a playoff spot right now, but Columbus, LA, Utah, and San Jose could be considered still in the race. They also kept their performance up against the teams out of the playoffs and avoided throwing points away to the Flyers, Blackhawks, and Blues.

If their run in December was what they needed to get back into the playoff race, their success in January is what they needed to establish their place at the top of the Eastern Conference. Along with the rest of the league, they’ll enjoy a bit of a break in February before the grind of March decides the season.