The Tampa Bay Lightning are going all-in once again. After advancing to back-to-back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals between 2020-22 — and winning two of them — the Bolts haven’t been past the first-round since.
General manager Julien BriseBois hopes to rectify that in 2024-25, and he made a huge splash by reuniting with two-time champion Yanni Gourde, along with Oliver Bjorkstrand, in a blockbuster trade with the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.
“Winning the Stanley Cup is hard, and it is what drives us and guides us in our decision-making,” the longtime executive told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun shortly after the trade broke. “You need good players to win a championship. The more good players you have, the better your odds are. I am trying to assemble as many good players on our team as possible and using our draft picks to do so.”
The Lightning are no strangers to making huge moves ahead of the deadline, and that’s exactly what the front office has done once again ahead of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
BriseBois continued: “The value in having draft picks lies in our ability to convert them into players that can help us win NHL hockey games. We used some draft capital to add two good players that will help us win more games this season and beyond. Ultimately, the calculation is that trying and failing will yield less regret than failing to try.”
Although Tampa Bay won’t have a first-round pick until 2028, BriseBois is confident one of the league’s best teams can remain in its competitive window until then.
Lightning one of hottest teams in NHL as of late
The Lightning are heating up at the perfect time, and the additions of Gourde and Bjorkstrand make the roster even more potent.
With nine wins in their last 10 games and now just three points back of the Toronto Maple Leafs for tops in the Atlantic Division, Tampa looks to have as good a shot as anyone to win the division. It’s a gauntlet, no doubt, with the Bolts, Leafs and defending champion Florida Panthers all within three points with 20 games left.
Although it’s expected that both Toronto and Florida will make moves of their own ahead of Friday’s NHL Trade Deadline — and the Panthers already added Seth Jones in their quest to go back-to-back after winning it all last season — Tampa Bay should be as tough an out as any team come mid-April.
With a superstar core led by Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and offseason addition Jake Guentzel, along with superstar goaltending from one of the league’s best goaltenders in Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning are looking scary.
It’ll be interesting to see if BriseBois and the front office makes any more moves between now and Friday at 3 p.m. ET — and whether the roster has the juice to return to the Stanley Cup Final for the fourth time in the last six years.
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