Phil Esposito also hired former teammates from the Boston Bruins of the 1970s, including former linemate Wayne Cashman as an assistant coach and former Bruin trainer John "Frosty" Forristal as the team's trainer. 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 tapped as the first head coach. Phil Esposito assigned himself president and general manager, while Tony became chief scout. Phil Esposito fronted an ownership group that was later awarded an NHL franchise in 1992. The Esposito group would win the expansion franchise on December 6, 1990, and name the team the Lightning, after Tampa Bay's status as the "Lightning Capital of North America". In contrast, the Esposito/Kokusai Green group was one of the few groups willing to pay the full $50 million expansion fee up front. Although it appeared on paper that the Karmanos/Rutherford group had more financial resources, it only wanted to pay $29 million before the game began. 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. Petersburg-based group fronted by future Hartford Whalers/ Carolina Hurricanes owners Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford, and a Tampa-based group fronted by Phil Esposito and his brother Tony, both members of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Two rival groups from the Tampa Bay Area decided to bid for a franchise: a St. In the late 1980s, the NHL announced it would expand. Jon Cooper has served as head coach since March 2013, and is the longest-tenured active head coach in the NHL.įranchise history Early years (1992–2000) Bringing hockey to Tampa The team is owned by Jeffrey Vinik, and the general manager is Julien BriseBois. They also reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015 and in 2022. The Lightning have won three Stanley Cup championships: 2004, 2020, and 2021. They play their home games at Amalie Arena in Downtown Tampa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. Any adjustments would spark another evolution in NHL team building, which the Lightning have perfected on their way to consecutive Stanley Cups.4 ( 2003–04, 2014–15, 2019–20, 2021–22) Strong cases can be made that the salary cap regulations need to be adjusted to align more closely with the foundational purposes of the cap limit. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong’s similar strategy in 2016, saying, “He played within the spirit of the rules during an era when competitors look for every available circumvention avenue.” According to The Athletic, seven other NHL teams also went over $85 million in total salary during the 2021 Playoffs (from, ‘Hurricanes’ Dougie Hamilton on Lightning: ‘We lost to a team $18M over the cap,” The Athletic, 6/11/21). Frank Seravalli, formerly of TSN Canada, wrote of St. Most notably, the Chicago Blackhawks placed winger Patrick Kane on LTIR and freed up roughly $6.3 million in cap space for GM Stan Bowman at the 2015 trade deadline knowing that Kane would likely return for the playoffs. Manipulating the cap in your best interest is not a new concept. The likelihood of any other NHL team losing a player of Kucherov’s talent for the entire regular season and still reaching the postseason is not high. A postseason berth is no simple achievement, evidenced by teams like the Dallas Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, and Calgary Flames that missed the postseason despite their talented rosters and high expectations in 2020-21. Their ability to earn a postseason bid without Kucherov, arguably their best player, before they exceeded the salary cap, speaks volumes about their organizational depth.
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