The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. The Lightning compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play their home games at Benchmark International Arena in Downtown Tampa. The Lightning are one of two NHL franchises based in Florida, with the other being the Florida Panthers.
The franchise is owned by Vinik Sports Group, with an investor group led by Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz holding a majority stake. Jeffrey Vinik remains chairman and governor during a transition period, while Julien BriseBois is the general manager. Jon Cooper has served as head coach since March 2013, and is the longest-tenured active head coach in the NHL.
The Lightning were founded as an expansion team on December 6, 1990, and began play in the 1992–93 NHL season. The team has won three Stanley Cup championships in , , and , and also played in two additional Stanley Cup Final series in and . The team's sustained success in the time period from 2015 to 2022 led some outlets to regard the Lightning as a modern NHL dynasty within that time span. Additionally, the Lightning won the Presidents' Trophy in 2019 after they tied the then-all-time record for regular season wins in the 2018–19 season with 62.
History
Early years (1992–2000)
Bringing hockey to Tampa In the late 1980s, the NHL announced it would expand the league. Two rival groups from the Tampa Bay Area decided to bid for a franchise: a St. Petersburg-based group fronted by future Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes owners Peter Karmanos Jr. and Jim Rutherford, and a Tampa-based group fronted by brothers Phil and Tony Esposito and Mel Lowell. One of the Esposito group's key backers, the Pritzker family, backed out a few months before the bid, to be replaced by a consortium of Japanese businesses headed by Kokusai Green, a golf course and resort operator. Although it appeared on paper that the Karmanos/Rutherford group had more financial resources, it only wanted to pay $29 million of the $50 million expansion fee before starting operations. In contrast, the Esposito/Kokusai Green group was one of the few groups willing to pay the full $50 million fee up front. The Esposito group won the expansion franchise on December 6, 1990, and named the team the Lightning, after Tampa Bay's status as the "Lightning Capital of North America."
Phil Esposito assigned himself president and general manager, while Tony became chief scout, and Mel Lowell executive vice-president and treasurer. Terry Crisp, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers when they won two Stanley Cups in the mid-1970s and coached the Calgary Flames to a Stanley Cup in 1989, was hired as the first head coach. In 1991, Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester, announced that a company of which he was a director would raise millions of dollars in investments in the Lightning, but his plans were unsuccessful and he was later convicted of wire fraud.
The Lightning played their first preseason game in September 1992 against the Minnesota North Stars. Manon Rhéaume became the first woman to play in any major professional sports league when she suited up for the Lightning in a preseason game, stopping seven of nine shots in goal. The Lightning played their first regular season game on October 7, 1992, in Tampa's Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds. They defeated the visiting Chicago Blackhawks, winning 7–3 with four goals by Chris Kontos. The team rose to the top of the Campbell Conference's Norris Division within a month, behind Kontos' initial torrid scoring pace and a breakout season by forward Brian Bradley. However, the team finished in last place with a 23–54–7 record for 53 points.
The following season Lightning shifted to the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division, as well as move into the Florida Suncoast Dome (a building originally designed for baseball) in St. Petersburg, which was reconfigured for hockey and renamed the "ThunderDome". The team acquired goaltender Daren Puppa, left wing goal scorer Petr Klíma, and veteran forward Denis Savard. The Lightning finished last in the Atlantic Division in 1993–94 with a record of 30–43–11. Another disappointing season followed in the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season with a record of 17–28–3.
On-ice and off-ice struggles In the 1995–96 season, backed by Bradley's team-leading 79 points, the Lightning qualified for the playoffs. Playing the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round, the Lightning split the opening two games in Philadelphia before taking game three in overtime before a ThunderDome crowd of 28,183. This was the largest crowd for an NHL game, a record that stood until the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton; and it still stands as the largest crowd at a Stanley Cup playoffs game. The Lightning lost the series in six games.
The Lightning moved into the current arena in downtown Tampa, the Ice Palace (now Benchmark International Arena) for the 1996–97 season. They acquired Dino Ciccarelli from the Detroit Red Wings during the 1996 offseason. Puppa developed a back injury that kept him out of all but six games during the season. Bradley also lost time to a series of concussions that would limit him to a total of 49 games from 1996 until his retirement in December 1999.
Crisp was fired 11 games into the 1997–98 season and replaced by Jacques Demers. The team did not improve and the Lightning lost 55 games.
The Lightning's plunge to the bottom of the NHL was due to inattentive ownership by Kokusai Green. Rumors abounded as early as the team's second season that the Lightning were on the brink of bankruptcy and that the team was part of a money laundering scheme for the yakuza (Japanese crime families). Its scouting operation consisted of Tony Esposito and several satellite dishes. The Internal Revenue Service investigated the team in 1994 and 1995, and nearly threatened to put a tax lien on the franchise for $750,000 in back taxes. The situation led longtime NHL broadcaster and writer Stan Fischler to call the Lightning a "skating vaudeville show."
Even in their first playoff season, the team was awash in red ink and Kokusai Green was looking to sell the team. However, its asking price of $230 million for the team and the lease with the Ice Palace deterred buyers. A possible sale was further hampered by the team's murky ownership structure; many team officials (including Crisp) did not know who really owned the team. Kokusai Green's owner, Takashi Okubo, had never met with the Espositos or with NHL officials in person prior to being awarded the Lightning franchise, and never watched his team play during his seven years as owner.
Nearly all of Kokusai Green's investment in the team and the Ice Palace came in the form of loans, leaving the team constantly short of cash. At least one prospective buyer pulled out after expressing doubts that Okubo even existed. In fact, the first time anyone connected with the Lightning or the NHL even saw Okubo was in the spring of 1998. Esposito was forced into several trades just to keep the team above water. The team's financial situation was a considerable concern to NHL officials; rumors surfaced that the NHL was seriously considering taking control of the team if Okubo failed to find a buyer by the summer of 1998.
Forbes wrote an article in late 1997 calling the Lightning a financial nightmare, with a debt equal to 236% of its value, the highest of any major North American sports franchise. Even though the Ice Palace was built for hockey and the Lightning were the only major tenant, Forbes called the team's deal with the arena a lemon since it would not result in much revenue for 30 years. It was also behind on paying state sales taxes and federal payroll taxes.
In 1998, Kokusai Green found a buyer. Although William Davidson, longtime owner of the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA), was thought to be the frontrunner, the buyer turned out to be insurance tycoon and motivational speaker Art Williams, who previously owned the Birmingham Barracudas of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The team was $102 million in debt at the time the sale closed. Williams knew very little about hockey, but was very visible and outspoken, and immediately pumped an additional $6 million into the team's payroll. He also cleared most of the debt from the Kokusai Green era. After taking control, Williams publicly assured the Espositos that their jobs were safe, only to fire them two games into the 1998–99 season. He then gave Demers complete control of hockey operations as both coach and general manager. Williams was widely seen as being in over his head. The Lightning drafted Vincent Lecavalier first overall in 1998.
Playoff contention and first Cup (2000–2010) By the spring of 1999, Williams was looking to sell the team. He had not attended a game in some time because "this team broke my heart". He lost $20 million in the 1998–99 season alone, as much money in one year as he had estimated he could have reasonably lost in five years. Williams sold the team for $115 million—$2 million less than he had paid for the team a year earlier—to Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson, who had almost bought the team a year earlier.
Davidson remained in Detroit, but appointed Tom Wilson as team president to handle day-to-day management of the team. Wilson immediately fired Demers and persuaded Ottawa Senators general manager Rick Dudley to take over as the Lightning's new general manager; Dudley, in turn, brought Vipers coach Steve Ludzik in as the team's new head coach. Even with a wholesale transfer of talent from Detroit to Tampa, the Lightning lost 54 games in 1999–2000 and 52 in 2000–01, becoming the first team in NHL history to post four straight 50-loss seasons. Ludzik was replaced in early 2001 by assistant coach John Tortorella. At the 2001 trade deadline, the team acquired goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin from the Phoenix Coyotes for three players and a draft pick.
The 2001–02 season, Tortorella's first full year behind the bench, saw some improvement. Martin St. Louis was having a breakout season until he broke his leg midway through the season and was injured for the remainder of the season. By mid-February, the Lightning were well out of playoff contention. Dudley resigned amidst the team's losing streaks, being replaced by assistant Jay Feaster. Tortorella stripped Lecavalier of the captaincy due to contract negotiations that made him miss the start of the season.
Two dream seasons and first Stanley Cup championship (2002–2004) In 2002–03, the team was led by the goaltending of Nikolai Khabibulin and the scoring efforts of Lecavalier, St. Louis, Fredrik Modin, Richards and Ruslan Fedotenko. They won the division by one point, giving them home-ice advantage in their first-round matchup with the Capitals. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lightning fell two games behind in the series but followed the two losses with four consecutive wins for their first playoff series win in franchise history. However, in the conference semifinals, they went down in five games to the New Jersey Devils.