Tampa Bay Lightning: Five reasons for hope in 2023-24

Later this month, the Tampa Bay Lightning will take to the ice and start ramping up their preparations for the 2023-24 season. Following a somewhat disappointing 2022-23 season, the boys in blue are looking for a bounce-back season to return to the mountaintop in the NHL.

After another offseason that featured a ton of change, it would be easy to be weary of Tampa’s chances this year.

But we here at Bolts by the Bay want to look on the bright side of things, for now at least, and here are five reasons to have hope the Tampa Bay Lightning will rebound in 2023-24.

Tampa Bay Lightning Reasons For Hope: The fourth line won’t be dinosaurs

We all love Pat Maroon, Corey Perry, and Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, but a real reality last season was that the pairing’s best year was well behind them.

They were physical, but their lack of speed became a real liability. That pairing last season had a Corsi of 43.30% (shot attempts for vs. shot attempts against while on the ice) and a goal share of just 16.67%.

Their playoff performance was better statistically, but not enough to justify the marginal numbers put up during the season.

All three are gone, and right now, the projected fourth line will be Luke Glendening, Josh Archibald,  and probably Mikey Eyssimont.

Maroon was the youngest member of that fourth line last year at 35 years old by the time the season ended.

Glendening, who will turn 35 next April, will be the oldest member of this line.

Goal scoring will still be a question mark for this group, but overall skating should be greatly improved.

Tampa Bay Lightning Reasons For Hope: This squad has actually had the chance to rest

It can not be overstated how grueling the three deep playoff runs the Lightning had were. It felt like last season it finally caught up to them.

Keep in mind that making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals adds two extra months to a team’s schedule and reduces the offseason to four months. And heading into the last two seasons, that rest was even less because the Stanley Cup getting pushed back in 2021 due to the Covid schedule and in 2022 due to the Olympic break.

So, while getting knocked out in the first round against Toronto was sad and not the ideal end to a season, it does mean that Tampa finally gets a full offseason of rest.

Tampa was knocked out on April 29. Its first regular season game is on October 10.

That’s 164 days to get rested and healed.

Tampa Bay Lightning Reasons For Hope: Anthony Cirelli is healthy again

Last year one of the disappointments was Anthony Cirelli. He missed the first two months of the season due to a shoulder sprain he suffered in the 2022 playoffs; his level of play wasn’t quite at the level we have come to expect.

His 29 points in 58 games were in line with what he has done for his career; his underlying numbers were down.

His Corsi was the lowest of his career, his shooting percentage of 7.78% was the second lowest of his career, his penalties drawn per game took a major dip compared to 2021-22, as did the number of hits per game he delivered.

There were bright spots despite the recovering shoulder. His faceoff percentage was in the positive for the first time since 2018-19, the number of high-danger chances he created was the highest of his career despite the shortened season, and his IPP (what percentage of goals scored while on the ice did he get credit for either the goal or an assist) was higher in 2022-23 than in 2021-22.

He will probably get paired with Steven Stamkos and Conner Sheary this season, though he also could stick with Brandon Hagel as the duo had great chemistry when together last season.

Tampa Bay Lightning Reasons For Hope: Still have the Big Cat

By his standards, Andrei Vasilevskiy did not have a great season in 2022-23. His save percentage of .915 was his lowest since 2015-16; likewise, his goals-against average of 2.65 was also his worst since 2015-16.

But even with those stats, he was still top ten in the league in both categroies among goalies that played at least 40 games in 2022-23.

Given what the Lightning are paying Vasilevskiy, he is going to be held to a higher standard than other goalies accross the league.

But as long as you have a top ten goalie that can eat up 60 games, you’re going to stay competitive every night even if the rest of the squad doesn’t always have their best stuff.

Plus he has a new mask for the season.

https://twitter.com/BarDown/status/1695947394175652106?s=20