High Expectations

The Tampa Bay Lightning  begin their 25th season tonight against the Detroit Red Wings and expectations are higher than ever this fall. The Lightning are coming off two seasons in which they made it to the Stanley cup final and eastern conference final respectively losing to the eventual cup winners in both seasons. Steve Yzerman and his staff had an busy off-season as they were able to sign back their core guys in Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Alex Killorn, and Nikita Kucherov. Basically have the same team coming back looking to get over the hump and win the ultimate prize being the Stanley cup. This team has it all, they just need to stay healthy and put it all together down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs.

The team has probably the best goalie duo in Ben Bishop and Andrei Vasilevskiy whom both have been outstanding over the last two seasons. The team has a big decision to make regarding Bishop as he is entering the final year of his contract. Does the team trade him if the right offer appears and go with Vasilevskiy going into the postseason? I say they don't and let Bishop get one more shot at winning it all, and then in the off-season they can figure that out.

Lightning have what they need to win it all as they have scoring, solid defense, and great goaltending. I think the big keys throughout the season is going to be staying healthy and developing the powerplay enough to make it a strength. If they can do those two things the sky is the limit for this team as they have everything else in place. It all begins tonight, it's going to be a fun season as expectations are high but this team would want it no other way.