The red-hot Lightning have pro scouting to thank for their success
The Tampa Bay Lightning wouldn’t have won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 if not for the contributions of Steven Stamkos, Mikhail Sergachev, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, Blake Coleman, and Tyler Johnson, among others.
The Bolts captured their second and third championships in franchise history with one of the most stacked rosters of the National Hockey League’s salary cap era, bolstered by shrewd acquisitions through trades and free agency. They’re one of only a handful of teams to win the Cup in back-to-back seasons.
For most teams that experience that level of success, it’s hard to resist the temptation to keep the whole gang together for as long as possible. We’ve seen both the Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings, the NHL’s top contenders of yesteryear, go to great lengths to retain (or even bring back) core players from championship teams in the face of diminishing returns. It’s an approach that almost always hurts more than it helps.
The Lightning certainly haven’t been immune to this, but they’ve been much more judicious about it than most. And that discretion — or, knowing exactly when to cut bait with certain players — is the single biggest reason why the Lightning currently sit atop the entire Eastern Conference, with an active 11-game winning streak, and look primed to make another championship run with a radically different roster.
The six key players mentioned above no longer play in Tampa Bay. Some were allowed to leave for bigger paydays in free agency; others were traded away at particularly advantageous opportunities. But their departures opened the door for the Lightning to make use of their top-tier pro scouting department, which has consistently outperformed its competition under the oversight of general managers Steve Yzerman and Julien BriseBois.
The Lightning saw the writing on the wall when Steven Stamkos became an unrestricted free agent in 2024. The Markham, Ont. product remained a strong scorer, but his 200-foot play had noticeably deteriorated, his extensive injury history was a red flag as he continued to age, and, with Brayden Point already in tow, the Lightning no longer needed him to play center for them.
Most executives in BriseBois’s position would’ve gone out of their way to re-sign their captain, especially after two championships. Instead, the Bolts allowed Stamkos to sign with the Nashville Predators and pivoted to a better stylistic fit that summer: Jake Guentzel, a natural winger with a long, decorated history of playing with star-level talent. Guentzel is four years younger than Stamkos and has a Cup ring of his own. And it’s already paying dividends: Guentzel has 61 goals in 125 games since signing with the Lightning.
The other enormous move Tampa Bay made in 2024 was to sell high on Sergachev, whose $8.5-million cap hit proved somewhat unwieldy for a Bolts team in need of more flexibility. Sergachev is a terrific offensive defenseman who is better served as a No. 2 or 3 option on a contender. But with the Utah Hockey Club (now the Mammoth) seeking to make a splash in their first offseason under new owner Ryan Smith, they paid a premium for the 6’3″ rearguard as part of a bid to add battle-tested winners to lead their blueline.
The Lightning received J.J Moser, Conor Geekie, and two draft picks in exchange for Sergachev, who has certainly been a net-positive player for Utah over the past two seasons. But what we’ve seen in Tampa Bay has been nothing short of remarkable: They’ve found a way to successfully recreate Sergachev in the aggregate. It helps enormously that Moser has taken multiple steps forward and become a legit top-pair defender for the Bolts, but he doesn’t quite have Sergachev’s offensive ability.
Enter Darren Raddysh and Charle-Edouard D’Astous, a pair of bolts from the blue (pun intended) who have played huge roles for the Lightning this season after spending years in relative obscurity. Between them, they’ll make $1.75 million for the 2025-26 campaign, and they’ve already combined to score 15 goals and 55 points in the first half of the season while playing top-four minutes.
Most of that is from Raddysh, who has done an admirable job of filling in for an injured Victor Hedman on the Bolts’ top pairing on No. 1 power-play unit. With only 215 NHL games under his belt at age 29, Raddysh doesn’t have nearly as many miles on him as most players his age, and the Lightning are understandably thrilled with his progress — although, in typically measured fashion, BriseBois has emphasized the need for a “bigger sample size” before committing to Raddysh on a long-term basis.
Moser and Raddysh have formed a tremendous top pairing for the Lightning this season, all for barely half what Sergachev makes in Utah. That’ll change somewhat next season when Moser’s well-earned contract extension kicks in, but that’s saying nothing for Geekie, who is progressing extremely well with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch and looks to potentially be the heir apparent to Anthony Cirelli down the middle for Tampa Bay.
There are countless more examples of this current Lightning management group targeting under-utilized players from other teams to replenish their own group, from Brandon Hagel and Oliver Bjorkstrand to Nick Paul and Pontus Holmberg. Of course, the key to any successful retool is to have a rock-solid core group, which the Bolts certainly do with Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Point, and Hedman.
But even for the most skilled and experienced teams, it’s easier said than done to stay at the top, especially amidst significant roster turnover. The Lightning have done it. They’re 29-13-3, including a ridiculous 17-4-3 record on the road, and possess the best goal differential (+44) in the entire Eastern Conference by a mile. They’re for real, and it’d be more than fitting for BriseBois to win the Jim Gregory Award as the NHL’s top GM to recognize his own efforts, as well as the performance of his scouts and executive group.
They’ve all done incredible work, and it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see them be rewarded with another championship in June.
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