The Tampa Bay Lightning are starting to drift in the wrong direction

Credit: Mar 2, 2021; Dallas, Texas, USA; Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh (27) in action during the game between the Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The Tampa Bay Lightning are playing a dangerous game.

It’s been three years since the Bolts won the Stanley Cup; just two since they last made the Final. Those playoff runs still feel like they were only yesterday.

And yet … the Lightning aren’t getting any closer to another championship, not even after re-acquiring Ryan McDonagh from the Nashville Predators on Tuesday. If anything, they’ve moved further away.

Two years ago, on the heels of their last Final appearance, the Lightning flipped McDonagh to Nashville for Phil Myers, who has played 16 games for them, and Grant Mismash, who has played none.

Essentially, they gave McDonagh away for free. It was a cap-clearing move intended to free up space so they could fit Brayden Point’s raise onto their payroll. At the time, it made a bit of sense, even if it left them in somewhat of a hole on defense.

But … on Thursday, the Bolts gave up a 2025 second-round pick to get McDonagh, now two years older, back at full freight. The 34-year-old has two years left on his deal at a hefty $6.75 million cap hit.

With that, the Lightning have now traded their first two picks in the 2025 NHL Draft, and they’ve also moved their first four picks in this year’s draft. Pending the results of the Conference Finals, Tampa won’t be on the clock at the Vegas Sphere until at least 125 other players are already off the board.

That might not be an issue if the Bolts also didn’t select in the first, third, and fifth rounds of last year’s draft. In fact, Isaac Howard is the only player they’ve selected in the first round of the last four draft years.

And honestly? It’s fair to say the Lightning might not have won the Stanley Cup in 2020 or 2021 without trading first-round picks for Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow. Those guys played instrumental roles in helping that team win back-to-back championships. They were huge swings, and they worked.

Since then? Let’s just say … the Bolts’ big moves haven’t worked out nearly as well. One, in particular, has been an unmitigated disaster. But the single major throughline over the last two years has been the Tampa Bay front office bleeding draft capital at an alarming rate without making significant improvements.

This Lightning team hasn’t won a playoff round in the last two seasons. They won two games in 2023 and just one this year. They’ve also lost Coleman, Goodrow, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, and Yanni Gourde for nothing, and they’re on the verge of potentially doing the same with none other than Steven Stamkos.

The Bolts have tried to make up for these losses by giving up picks to replenish their supporting cast, and while players like Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul have done a solid job in their respective roles, Tanner Jeannot hasn’t — and they gave up nearly as much for him as the other two, combined.

In a move that looked highly questionable the day it was made, the Lightning moved five draft picks — two shy of a full year’s worth — to acquire Jeannot from the Nashville Predators at the 2023 trade deadline. It hasn’t worked out whatsoever. Jeannot has managed just eight goals in 75 games over parts of two seasons in Tampa and is now just one year away from becoming an unrestricted free agent. He has zero goals in 16 career playoff games.

The Lightning could’ve used some of those picks to draft players who’d be able to enter their lineup on cheap entry-level deals in the coming seasons, or even to trade for a young, cost-controlled defenseman. Instead, they bought high on a player who had five goals in 56 games with Nashville prior to the deal.

That left the Lightning particularly thin and vulnerable on defense, especially in the case of an injury. That danger became a reality in 2023-24 when Mikhail Sergachev broke his leg. The Bolts ended up having to use Darren Raddysh and Nick Perbix in their top four for large swaths of the season, and their big defensive get at the trade deadline was a declining Matt Dumba.

Well, now, they have McDonagh, who returns to Tampa Bay no younger, cheaper, or better than he was when he left. It was an odd move that harkens to the Chicago Blackhawks’ days of reacquiring their old Cup champs in a last-ditch effort to recapture their former glory. Remember when Andrew Ladd, Brian Campbell, Johnny Oduya, Patrick Sharp, Andrew Shaw, and Brandon Saad went back to Chicago? Don’t worry, no one does.

After all, it’s not like useful young players don’t get moved for second-round picks. The Bolts traded Ross Colton to the Colorado Avalanche less than a year ago for the No. 37 overall selection in 2023. That was a solid trade for Tampa Bay that helped them replenish their depleted base of future assets at the cost of a player who had become a little redundant.

Yes, unlike Colton, McDonagh addresses a need for this Lightning team. Yes, he’s still a good player. But it makes very little sense that the Lightning paid to bring him back after giving him away for nothing, and it makes even less sense to bring him back if it means they’ll now also lose Steven Stamkos for nothing. It just doesn’t compute.

The Lightning will have championship aspirations as long as Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy are still around. They’re hardly a bad team. But they’ve spent the last two years swapping out various members of their supporting cast and flipping draft picks left and right without making any meaningful upgrades. What good will any of that be if it prevents them from keeping their 40-goal-scoring captain?

The Stanley Cup might be heading back to Florida this year, but it won’t be going to Tampa Bay. If the Lightning aren’t careful, it might not return there for a long, long time.

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