Their window is closing, but Lightning have crept back into contention

TAMPA — Sometime in the next week or two, the Lightning will clinch a playoff berth.

There will be a whoop, maybe a holler, and then business as usual. This is what the Lightning do, or so the narrative goes. Their next postseason appearance will be their seventh in a row, and 10th in the last 11 years. It’s death, taxes and Nikita Kucherov.

And I can’t help but feel that’s unfortunate.

Not Tampa Bay’s success, but the expectation that it’s somehow inevitable. As if winning 50 playoff games since 2018 is the norm in every NHL market. The Lightning have more playoff wins across that span than Arizona, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Jersey, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington — combined.

And yet, for most of this season, there has been a gnawing feeling that Tampa Bay has underperformed. That the 2023-24 version of the Lightning has diminished the impact and aura of their previous selves.

So is this roster a lesser version of recent Lightning teams?

Heck, yes!

And you could argue that makes this group almost as impressive.

They’ve won without Ondrej Palat. Without Alex Killorn. Without Tyler Johnson, Ryan McDonagh, Yanni Gourde and more than a dozen other contributors who helped Tampa Bay win two Stanley Cups and fall a couple victories short of a third.

“Before the season, if you said after 72 games, this team is going to be 40-25-7, I would have said, ‘That’s our 2024 team, our 2023 team, our 2022 team, our 2021 team, our 2020 team.’ We just got here a different way,” coach Jon Cooper said last week when I asked if he considered this group overachievers.

“At this point, we haven’t accomplished anything yet. But we’re at (89) points with (8) games to go. If we can find ourselves damn near that century mark, it’s pretty much where this organization has been for years.”

He’s not wrong about that. On their current trajectory, the Lightning are on pace to finish with 98 or 99 points and in fourth place in the Atlantic Division. Last year, they were at 98 and in third place. The year before that, they were at 110 and in third place.

That’s what the last three weeks and an 8-1-1 stretch have accomplished in Tampa Bay. It has taken the Lightning from an uncertain playoff position to the No. 1 wild card spot with an outside chance of passing the Maple Leafs in the division, depending on the outcome of Wednesday night’s game in Toronto.

It’s also reminded the rest of us of just how impressive this organization has been for the past decade.

The salary cap was meant to do away with domination and dynasties. The more you succeed in the NHL, the harder it is to keep your roster intact. Because the Lightning have continued to win — six appearances in the Eastern Conference finals since 2015 — we’ve failed to appreciate the improbability of keeping this going.

In that sense, maybe the early struggles of this season did us a favor.

“Sometimes it can be frustrating when you’re not in first or second place, and instead you’re fourth or fifth,” Cooper said. “All of a sudden, there’s thoughts that maybe our guys are lacking, maybe they don’t have that belief. But among the core group, and our coaches and management, there was always belief in this group. It was just a question of how can we make these pieces fit. And lately, we’re starting to put the puzzle together.”

Steven Stamkos is in the final year of his contract, and the Lightning do not have a lot of salary cap flexibility. Victor Hedman is 33 and no longer an automatic contender for the Norris Trophy. Andrei Vasilevskiy is having the worst statistical season of his career, although he’s not gotten enough help from the guys in front of him.

And there’s not a ton of help on the horizon because the Lightning have traded so many prospects and draft picks in the hope of maximizing this once-in-a-generation core of stars.

So maybe, before it’s too late, try to appreciate what this group has done in 2023-24. Not based on the success of previous years, but in the context of reinventing themselves against all odds.

One of these days, this run will end.

But, thanks to the past three weeks, it will not be at the end of this regular season.

And, beyond that, who knows?

John Romano can be reached jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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