If any team is rejoicing over the recent news of an increased salary cap, it’s the Tampa Bay Lightning. Their championship run was handcuffed by a frozen salary cap during the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing them to break up the band sooner than they would have liked.
Imagine if the salary cap had jumped to $88 million after the 2020-21 season, the year the Lightning won their second-straight Stanley Cup. But alas, here we are. The cap is finally going up, and the team will have some breathing room for improvements – or at least to help maintain what they have. Here’s how the Lightning can best use their newfound cap space.
Re-Sign Steven Stamkos
We’re starting with the obvious. Extra cap space will help the Lightning hang on to their franchise player, Steven Stamkos.
Salary cap constraints contributed to this problem in the first place, and the Lightning should use this newfound space to lock down Stamkos as a Bolt for life. It would be worth it beyond just the on-ice product. That being said, keeping Stamkos would help the on-ice product. He scored 40 goals in 2023-24 and was one of the few players who produced in the playoffs.
Related: Lightning GM Confident Team Has Another Stanley Cup in Them
The salary cap should continue to rise, too, and his cap hit will be less of a factor. The Lightning’s franchise player could retire with the team while they keep their championship window open longer.
Lightning Need Defensive Help
Management already re-acquired Ryan McDonagh. Great start. The increased salary cap will allow them to take on that cap hit. However, if the Lightning play the cap game just right, they can add more depth. The defense needs all the help it can get. Early in the season, the team allowed more shots on goal than nearly every other team in the NHL.
The defense improved as players stepped up. However, they still allowed the 11th most goals this season – a dropoff from when they allowed the sixth-fewest goals just a couple of seasons ago. A team can never have too much defense, and they learned that they can’t rely on goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to save everyone.
Furthermore, after getting outmuscled by the Florida Panthers in the playoffs in a gentleman’s sweep, the Lightning need to prioritize their blue line. They had very few answers to stop the Panthers’ game plan and struggled to get past center ice. When they did, they didn’t have the defense to sustain anything, and the Panthers were quickly back on offense.
As the old saying goes, defense wins championships.
Now, for the sake of it, I’ll extend the meaning of more defensive help to include using the added cap space to keep top defensive stars like Victor Hedman. He’s going to be an unrestricted free agent after next season. Since the cap is expected to increase significantly again after next season, the Lightning have all the incentive to hammer out that deal and be done with it.
Lightning Need More High-Quality Depth Pieces On Offense
On the flip side, the Lightning could decide to focus on offense – beyond re-signing Stamkos. There are valid reasons for that, even if defense might be the area that needs the most help.
The Lightning offense didn’t have that much trouble scoring this season. But it was mostly through the sorcery of Hart Trophy finalist Nikita Kucherov. If Kucherov had a mediocre night, the Lightning, more often than not, did too. Having one player lift a team to the playoffs is not a sustainable model, and bolstering the offense would ease the pressure.
This isn’t to say their stars shouldn’t have to produce, but the Bolts wouldn’t have won the Cups they did if their offense had operated at this level in 2020 and 2021. That extra player, or two, who can score even just 20 to 25 goals, could do wonders.
The Lightning have big decisions to make this offseason. They have finally been given some breathing room. However, it’s up to them to decide what is the best route to win another Stanley Cup. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure book, and you’re looking at the pages the Lightning can choose from. These options could have very different outcomes for the team that will impact what the roster will look like both as a contender and who represents them.
