Cash-strapped Lightning have an interesting offseason ahead of them
One of the teams that is going to be worth keeping an eye on this offseason is the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Despite showing improvements during the 2024-25 season, finishing second in the Atlantic Division, the Lightning were unceremoniously roasted by the Florida Panthers in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
That leads to this summer, when the team will look to improve the roster. The problem is that Tampa has less than $2 million in cap space, according to CapWages. That doesn’t give general manager Julien BriseBois a lot of room to make big swings this offseason, which means the Lightning might look very similar in 2025-26.
On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk look at what the summer could behold for the Sunshine State’s other team.
Tyler Yaremchuk: They don’t have a lot of money, but they don’t have a lot of needs really, either. How do you view this Lightning team heading into the summer?
Frank Seravalli: I view this team as a good team, but a flawed team. I still think that they’re a team that, when they get to the playoffs, they are significantly outmatched in the bottom portion of their lineup. … Think about what has made Edmonton and Florida so special. Florida is arguably the best three-line team in the league. The Oilers run four lines. The Tampa Bay Lightning, I think, get thin in a hurry. They didn’t do themselves any favors with some of the injuries that popped up, and their list was incredibly long for a team that did not have a long playoff run. But that, to me, I think stands out as a key differentiator on both sides of the puck.
Their defense core also gets really thin in the bottom pair. Part of that’s just salary cap and the way that the team is structured. I don’t know their way around it. I don’t know that they’re going to solve for it. I think the early indication is that the Lightning are going to be one of the more aggressive teams this offseason to try and rejig things. I don’t know what they’re going to do.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…