Where do the Tampa Bay Lightning go from here?

In this same space about a year ago, I wrote about how difficult it would be for the Tampa Bay Lightning to keep many of the players that helped them win their second straight Stanley Cup. And indeed, many jetted off for big-money UFA contracts in places like Calgary and Manhattan.

The Lightning ended up not missing those players too much in the regular season, and they made another deep playoff run. But this summer will probably not be like last summer.

The Bolts have only four pending UFAs on the books right now, and no RFAs.

Up front, they are slated to lose old standby Ondřej Palát, as well as rentals Riley Nash and rental Nick Paul. On the blue line, it’s just Jan Rutta. And that’s it.

Not a bad position to be in, but this ignores that the Lightning are already over next year’s cap by alm