© Mark LoMoglio/NHLI via Getty Images

NHL.com is providing in-depth roster, prospect and fantasy analysis for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1-Sept. 1. Today, the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Back-to-back first-round exits were enough to convince the Tampa Bay Lightning some hard roster decisions had to be made to keep their Stanley Cup window open.

Gone is franchise icon Steven Stamkos, who was not re-signed and joined the Nashville Predators as an unrestricted free agent on July 1, signing a four-year, $32 million contract ($8 million average annual value).

Gone is 26-year-old defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, who was traded to the Utah Hockey Club on June 29 for defenseman J.J. Moser, forward Conor Geekie and two draft picks.

The cap space that opened allowed the Lightning to sign forward Jake Guentzel to a seven-year, $63 million contract ($9 million average annual value). Guentzel turns 30 on Oct. 6. Stamkos is 34. 

Ryan McDonagh was brought back to Tampa Bay in a trade with the Predators. The 35-year-old defenseman played parts of five seasons with the Lightning from 2018-22, winning the Stanley Cup with them in 2020 and 2021.

They’re massive and emotional changes and it will still take months before anyone knows if they were the right changes.

“I’ve heard it from a handful of guys, ‘We haven’t gotten out of the first round two years in a row,’ ” McDonagh said. “That’s probably what fans are looking at, what management is looking at, the coaching staff too. What’s gone on here? Why haven’t we gotten out of the first round? I don’t want to take away anything from Stamkos and Sergachev. They’re some of my closest teammates and obviously I’ve won with them, but they’ll tell you just like I will that there’s a business side to it and with management you have to believe in their decisions. We train, do this for a living, and our goal is to win the Cup. … It’ll be a unique challenge when you lose two pillar pieces like that in the offseason, but we have a great group of veterans, a young core that has been together for a long time and is hungry to get over that hump and get back to having a deep run and playoff success.”

Stamkos was with the Lightning for 16 years. He was their captain for the past 10. He is their all-time leader in goals (555), points (1,137), power play goals (214) and games played (1,082). He scored 40 last season.

But the Lightning last season were tied for 22nd in goals against per game (3.26) and 28th in 5-on-5 goals against (190). They were last among the 16 teams that made the Stanley Cup Playoffs in both categories. They lost to the Florida Panthers in five games in the Eastern Conference First Round, allowing 20 goals in the series.

Nobody is pinning all of that on Stamkos. He did his job by scoring 40 goals, including 19 on the power play, helping the Lightning have the best power play in the NHL (28.6 percent).

But to win and be a Cup contender again the Lightning have to improve defensively, especially at 5-on-5. They have to be better at driving and keeping possession than they were last season, when they were 17th in shot-attempts percentage (50.5).

It’s why they acquired McDonagh, to beef up their back end with a known stalwart defender.

It’s partly why they targeted Guentzel instead of re-signing Stamkos, largely because he’s known for his ability to drive possession and keep plays alive in the offensive zone.

Guentzel has also averaged 35.3 goals per season in the past three seasons.

“Obviously, it’s well documented how successful he was with [Sidney] Crosby for so many years, so you’re thinking and hoping and you believe that he can play with players who think the game at a high level like [Nikita] Kucherov and [Brayden] Point,” McDonagh said. “I can see him taking his game to another level from where it was at before, which was already a pretty high level.”

It still comes back to defending as the key to the Lightning being a Stanley Cup contender. All you have to do is look at the past two seasons versus the previous four.

The Lightning are 21st in goals against per game (3.16) since the start of the 2022-23 season. They’ve won four playoff games, and that’s with Andrei Vasilevskiy, arguably the best goalie in the world, Victor Hedman, one of the top defensemen in the game, and Kucherov, who led the NHL with 144 points last season.

By contrast, they were fourth in the NHL in goals against per game (2.75) from 2017-22, when they also led the NHL with 246 wins and 518 points in the regular season and 59 wins in the playoffs (Eastern Conference Final in 2018, Stanley Cup champions in 2020 and 2021, Stanley Cup Final in 2022).

“No one, especially in our organization, wants to be losing in the first round,” forward Anthony Cirelli said. “We want to get back there, get back on top. I think a lot of teams in the past couple of years maybe haven’t counted us out but didn’t really have us as the No. 1 team as we were in prior years. That’s a mindset that we have to have. I think we have the team to do it. We have a lot of good pieces. For sure, have a chip on our shoulder. Two straight years we’ve lost in the first round. That’s not where we want to be.”