John Romano: It's official: This qualifies as the worst start in Lightning history

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Oct 24, 2025

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Lightning are so much better than this.

Better than a 1-4-2 record. Better than the crucial breakdowns late. Better than four consecutive one-goal losses, and better than the worst record in the Eastern Conference.

That’s what you should be telling yourself.

Because the alternative is too depressing to think about.

The Lightning returned home after a four-game road trip and returned to the ice after four days off, but they still could not avoid completing the worst seven-game start in the franchise’s 33-year history. Tampa Bay surrendered a goal with 54 seconds remaining to lose, 3-2, to Chicago on Thursday night.

A Nikita Kucherov turnover on the opposite end of the ice led to a 2-on-1 Chicago rush. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped Frank Nazar’s initial shot, but the rebound went directly to Ryan Donato, who did not miss the open right side of the net.

“It’s unfortunate, the breakdown we had at the end,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “You can’t just sit here and go, ‘There’s a moral victory that we played a fairly good game.’ We have to finish these off, and whether we finish it off in overtime or in a shootout, we can’t let that happen. It was just a mistake on our part.”

If you were grading on style, the Lightning were much sharper than in recent games.

They were more aggressive on offense, firing 72 shots (including 31 on net) compared to Chicago’s 48 (with 25 on net). They were above .500 on faceoffs for the first time this season. They wiped out deficits in the first two periods, and they hit a post four times.

And, yet, if you were grading on substance, there wasn’t a dang bit of difference.

They never had a lead, they took too many penalties and they could not end a losing streak against a team that hasn’t had a winning season in the past five years.

You could argue that this is exacerbated by the calendar. That a seven-game funk in January wouldn’t be nearly so concerning.

But Cooper was having none of that. If Lightning players are counting on eight years of exemplary play as a crutch, they need to ponder the meaning of wishful thinking.

“A lot to learn from the game,” Cooper said. “Regardless if you’ve had guys here — and we have a lot of veterans in the lineup — because you’ve done it before doesn’t mean you’re going to do it again. You have to understand what it took and what it takes to do it again.

“Right now, we’re not making a ton of mistakes, but when we are we’re getting burned.”

Oh, there were moments of hustle. Of vision. Of brilliance. In one split-second sequence, Kucherov displayed all three.

The reigning scoring champion had an open net just to the right of goaltender Spencer Knight but missed wide. Kucherov, however, followed up to regain possession of the puck off the wall. He immediately sent it all the way back to the blue line, where Ryan McDonagh whipped a shot toward the net and Jake Guentzel tipped it in to tie the game 1-1.

Tampa Bay’s second goal wasn’t quite so dramatic, but it was equally impressive.

McDonagh and Kucherov came up the ice nearly side by side when the defenseman dumped a pass to his teammate before heading between the faceoff circles. Kucherov controlled the puck for a beat and then slipped a pinpoint pass past two defenders and McDonagh slammed it in for his third goal of the season.

The two assists gave Kucherov 999 points for his career.

“I don’t want to sit up here and sound like anybody feels great right now. There’s no moral victory,” McDonagh said. “Did we give ourselves a chance to win? Yeah, I think so. It’s a game of small margins, and right now we’re getting hurt by the margins we cause against ourselves.”

At this point, the numbers do not really matter. It doesn’t matter that Brayden Point is minus-9 and Kucherov is minus-8. It doesn’t matter that a defenseman (McDonagh) is tied for the team lead in goals. It doesn’t matter that the power play has been mediocre.

What matters is that the Lightning needed two points on Thursday and came up short.

“There was a ton of positives to take out of the game, but unfortunately it’s a result-oriented game,” Cooper said. “We didn’t get the result.”

So is there any reason to be optimistic today?

How about this:

One win in the first seven games is not necessarily a death sentence. There have been five teams (out of 26) in the past decade that have had similar starts and still made the playoffs. Two of them (Edmonton in 2023 and Dallas in 2019) went on to reach the Stanley Cup Final.

That’s what you should be telling yourself.