5 Things Lightning Fans Should be Thankful for this Year
1. A Chance to Win Again
The Lightning have a shot to hoist a third straight Stanley Cup this year. Winning one is an extremely difficult accomplishment in today’s NHL. But the Lightning have the chance to put themselves in the conversation for the greatest teams in the league’s history if they add a third straight.
All you can ask for is a chance. No regular season win, or loss should matter at all in the greater scope of what this team can accomplish. The gift of time to just get through the grind of the NHL season and then see where things go in the playoffs is a luxury that few teams can be afforded in a season. The confidence to be able to look long term has been earned because we know that this team is capable of getting into playoffs and having the chance to win the whole thing again is all you can ask. 
2. Andrei Vasilevskiy
Goaltender in the NHL is the most important position in all of sports, and the Lightning have the best one. He gives his club a chance to win every single night and has the ability to cover up any mistake made in front of him.
His run during this year’s run to the cup was among the greatest goaltending performances in the history of sport. You cannot have a great team without great goaltending and Vasilevskiy has been nothing short of great during the past few seasons. Fans should be thankful for what he has done and what he will continue to do going forward. As long as he is in the Lightning net, they will *always* have a chance.
3. Injuries
Hear me out on this. Early season injuries to Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and others will turn out to be galvanizing periods of time in the long run. Nobody wishes for anybody to get hurt, but times like these can prove to be positives over the long grind of the NHL season.
The adversity faced by teams with significant losses can spark teams on runs to the promise land. Losing significant pieces allows for players to step into new roles and help the team grow. The team learns how to win without those players and when players return from injury, this can provide an injection of life into a dressing room.
Steven Stamkos fighting through injury and eventually returning briefly in the 2020 Stanley Cup Final gave the Lightning a unique jolt of life that they helped ride to the cup. Nikita Kucherov’s return for game one of the 2021 playoffs, after missing the entire regular season, gave the Lightning new-found energy that they rode all the way to the cup again. With the lesson’s learned without key players in the lineup, teams can be molded into the champions they become.
4. Benoit Groulx
You may not know the name and he may not get the headlines, but Benoit Groulx deserves credit for part of the Lightning’s great success. Groulx has been the head coach of the Lightning’s AHL affiliate Syracuse Crunch since the 2016-17 season. In order to have a successful NHL club, you have to not only draft well, but develop those players. Since Groulx has taken over, the Crunch have continued to churn out players who are able to contribute at the NHL level when they are ready.
Groulx deserves as much credit as anybody in the organization for the continued development of young players who are on the road to becoming NHL ready. In today’s NHL, you need to develop your own players. You cannot build a championship team through free agency or trades alone. Yanni Gourde, Carter Verhaeghe, and Ross Colton were of some of the greatest of Groulx’s products on the Lightning’s path to back-to-back cups and Groulx deserves recognition in helping develop them as players. Alex Barre-Boulett, Taylor Raddysh, and Boris Katchouk make the next wave ready to contribute right now at the NHL level after their time in Syracuse under Groulx.
5. Jeff Vinik
The man with the plan. The Tampa Bay Lightning would be nowhere without Jeff Vinik. Since taking over in 2010, Vinik has taken the Lightning and Tampa community to new levels on and off the ice. He has helped turn Tampa into one of the most desirable places for people and players to live and work. The overall work he has done with the organization and community was best reflected when the Lightning were ranked the top sports franchise in North America in 2016.
When taking over, Vinik did not bother trying to leave his own handprints on the hockey club. He hired the right people who helped make the Lightning organization successful on and off the ice. A lot of owners in other sports want their voice heard in team operations, but Vinik’s hands off approach has proven to be a winning formula. While the face of it all, his ability to put the right people in the right places in the organization has helped the club reach unimaginable heights.