After years of decline, can Lightning turn back clock with McDonagh?

TAMPA — Ryan McDonagh is back, and the Lightning are a better team today.

Perhaps better than at any point in the past two seasons since McDonagh was originally traded to Nashville.

But are they great?

If reacquiring McDonagh makes Tampa Bay a Stanley Cup contender again, then it is absolutely a smart, wondrous, franchise-altering trade. But this is a pass/fail acquisition and cannot afford to be graded on a curve. If the Lightning’s improvement is only marginal, then this will ultimately be viewed as a mistake.

“We didn’t give up that much to get Ryan and we know what we’re getting, so I already think the trade was worth doing,” Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois said. “We’re a better team. We’ve moved the odds in our favor. How much? That’s hard to quantify. The odds are long for everyone. There are 32 teams, 16 make the playoffs, only two get to the finals.

“When you start crunching it, the odds are against everyone and are really small. But our job is to increase those odds, push them forward and make it a little more likely that, if the stars align for us, we can go on another magical run.”

Yes, the price of acquisition (essentially, a second-round draft pick) was low. And yes, McDonagh is precisely the type of player the Lightning needed most.

He’s a shutdown defenseman coming to a team that gave up far too many goals in 5-on-5 situations. He also was among the most important voices in the Tampa Bay locker room, particularly when it came to expectations, and that’s important, too.

But this is not the same team McDonagh left two years ago after the Game 6 loss to Colorado in the Stanley Cup final. Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, Jan Rutta, Pat Maroon, Corey Perry, Zach Bogosian and Ross Colton are all gone. Eleven teams have amassed more regular-season points than Tampa Bay the past two years, and 12 teams have won more playoff games.

For the most part, the Lightning have looked more like a team sliding down the hill than charging back up it.

And that means they are banking on McDonagh, a soon-to-be 35-year-old defenseman who was just traded for a second-round pick, to significantly alter their outlook.

Because, let’s face it, the Lightning are not in a position to make too many other moves to improve this offseason. In fact, if they re-sign Steven Stamkos, they’ll likely need to subtract players from the current roster to fit under the salary cap.

Maybe that sounds pessimistic on what should be a happy day.

After all, what BriseBois said earlier is certainly true. The Lightning are a better team today. And they did increase their odds of contending, which is absolutely his job as GM.

But it’s also his job to recognize the difference between a team with a legitimate chance of succeeding in the playoffs versus a team spinning its wheels. And if the Lightning are not noticeably better with McDonagh, then they will have wasted two more years instead of using that opportunity to build toward a different future.

“There’s a handful of guys on that team still that are proven winners, and that’s hard not to overlook,” McDonagh said. “That core group is a special group. And to be back with them, it’s hard not to make you believe again that something special can be done once more.”

In no way is this a knock on McDonagh. During his four full seasons in Tampa Bay, the Lightning ranked fifth, ninth, sixth and sixth in goals allowed. Since he left, they’ve been 14th and 22nd. While Victor Hedman is a future Hall of Famer and Mikhail Sergachev has talent to burn, they are both offensive-minded defenders.

McDonagh is the guy who stood his ground in front of the Tampa Bay net, dishing out hits and blocking shots. There’s a reason he is one of only a dozen defensemen with a plus-minus rating above 100 over the past six seasons. He will make the Lightning harder to play against, and that is a meaningful compliment.

He doesn’t have the brash personality of Maroon or the abrasiveness of Perry on the ice, but he will make the locker room more accountable. And with a team that sometimes seems to go long stretches on cruise control, that’s not an insignificant addition.

So, maybe I’m being too worrisome. Maybe McDonagh has been the missing ingredient the past two seasons, and the Lightning were smart to correct that original salary cap-induced error.

It’s a lot of pressure on McDonagh. On BriseBois, too.

Here’s hoping it works.

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

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