High-Octane Bolts Set to Host Ottawa for Opener
The Tampa Bay Lightning are entering the 2025-26 regular season with reckless abandon following two of the more memorable preseason contests, perhaps, in NHL history.
The Lightning will host Ottawa today at 7 p.m. at Benchmark International Arena (ESPN+) to kick off the real games.
“This has been a whole bunch of great guys,” veteran Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said on Wednesday of the training camp experience, “who all had this ‘gamer’ attitude. It was impressive to be around them.”
Tampa Bay closed its seven-game preseason on Saturday by accumulating 36 penalties and 182 penalty minutes in a 7-0 free-for-all at Florida. That game followed a 5-2 win over the Panthers in which the Lightning tallied 23 penalties and 82 penalty minutes.
“We really got to work on our penalty kill,” Cooper said on Saturday.
The final 120 minutes of chaos aside, the training camp was a tremendous one by all accounts. The team won six of seven games, and the competition among the bottom lines was fierce due to the level of talent vying for this roster.
That depth and ability are among several areas to watch as the team sets its sights on a return to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Here are some story lines to follow this season.
Better Depth
One glance at the Syracuse roster and it is clear that Tampa Bay sent some talented players to its American Hockey League affiliate.
“I have confidence every day that I should be (in Tampa),” veteran forward Boris Katchouk said during training camp, “and I want to be here.”
He wasn’t being delusional with his aspirations, and several of his now-teammates with the Crunch could say the same.
Ultimately, Jack Finley, and Curtis Douglas (a big player and an even bigger surprise he is in Tampa) were the two forwards at the bottom of the rotation to stay in town for the season opener, while Katchouk, Wojciech Stachowiak, Dominic James, Jakob Pelletier, and Dylan Duke all had very strong camps, only to be sent north directionally and south professionally.
“You want them to know that we care about them,” Cooper said of the players at the bottom of the depth chart. “They are a part of us.
“This is a positive group.”
Veterans Nick Paul and Zemgus Girgensons will both start the season on injured reserve, while defenseman JJ Moser will serve a two-game suspension following an altercation in the final Florida exhibition game.
Tampa Bay will carry 14 forwards and just six defensemen on its opening night roster, along with three goaltenders.
Defensively, Max Crozier stuck with the Lightning this season after playing in a mere five games last season.
“It’s been a competitive camp,” Crozier said. “We’re all playing for spots, but we’re also all playing for each other here.
“We all want to be in the lineup, but at the end of the day, we all want the organization to win.”
A McDonagh Repeat?
The most startling improvement that Tampa Bay made statistically a year ago was its performance defensively, and the stellar season that veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh had was a critical reason for that level of performance.
At 36 years of age this season, people will be curious to see if ‘Father Time’ begins to catch up with McDonagh – finally.
“You definitely learn different things to try and stay effective,” McDonagh said of his continued growth as a player. “Trying to stay ahead of the next play is my main emphasis.”
Last year, McDonagh led the National Hockey League in plus/minus at an astonishing plus-43, which was a career best.
“I still feel like I can skate and get up and down the ice,” McDonagh said. “I feel as confident as ever going into this season. I had a good summer.”
Is There ‘Power’ In The Power Play?
The Lightning ranked fifth in power play percentage (25.9 percent) as a team last season after leading the NHL the year before (27.3 percent), which can be attributed to losing a Hall of Fame-caliber player (Steven Stamkos) on the left side of that unit.
That drop wasn’t significant over 82 games, but in the five-game loss to eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida in the opening round of the postseason, that part of the Lightning attack was miserable.
Tampa Bay was successful on just 11.1 percent of its power play opportunities against the Panthers, and that performance resonated with veteran Nikita Kucherov, who discussed that topic at the start of training camp.
“The power play was bad in the playoffs,” Kucherov said. “Whatever happens during the season, who cares?”
Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, and Oliver Bjorkstrand will all return as veterans on that specific unit, as will players like Darren Raddysh, Mitchell Chaffee, and Anthony Cirelli.
The Lightning will seek to find an early rhythm this season with its power play lineup, as well as its structure, and will have to do so against the top teams, which Kucherov said didn’t happen last year as much as he would have liked.
“We need to have the right puzzles (I believe the Russian meant pieces) on the power play to make sure that it is working,” Kucherov said. “You can go against the top five teams and play bad, but then you go against five bad teams, and you score a few, and your stats are looking better.
“You forgot about the top five teams.”
An Order Of Toughness, Please
In the wake of Florida physically dominating the Lightning in the postseason, and then the street brawls that took place last week, Tampa Bay claimed a ‘mammoth’ of a player, literally, off waivers on Sunday.
The Lightning claimed center/left wing Curtis Douglas, who is 6-foot-9 and nearly 250 pounds, off waivers from the Utah Mammoth, and to the surprise of many fans (maybe all of them), the three-year AHL veteran is on the Tampa Bay opening night roster.
“Nobody is being judged on the first game or first practice,” Cooper said of his expectations for Douglas. “He is going to have time to fit in.
“I’ve seen him on tape,” Cooper said, “the things he does and his physical attributes, and the ways he can influence games. From all of the reports and what we have watched so far, he was somebody that we wanted to bring in.”
