Predicting when every NHL team will win its next Stanley Cup

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning are not going to win the Stanley Cup in 2019, and the Bolts probably won’t win their second Cup in franchise history come 2020, either.

Yes, it all looks good and fancy on paper, but just ask the San Jose Sharks how that’s worked out since 2006. The reality is that the Lightning should have already won a Cup during the Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman era, and the fact that it hasn’t happened yet means it’s not going to come any easier.

Still, the chances are that the Bolts have three to four more good years left to win their next Cup and before general manager Steve Yzerman could consider selling off some of the team’s notable skaters.

Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and J.T. Miller headline the Bolts’ offense and offer experience. Then there are the youthful assets the Bolts have groomed with the likes of Brayden Point and defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. Expect Point and Sergachev to be the new faces of the franchise in due time, but they’ll also need some time to truly blossom and help the Bolts win another title.

Yanni Gourde, 26, turned out to be a dynamic two-way player, but the chances are that the team will have to let him walk once the undrafted forward is an unrestricted free agent after 2019. Or, the Bolts could consider trading him and other notable skaters prior to the 2019 NHL Trade Deadline to shake up the team’s roster.

The key here is that something needs to change in Tampa. It could be behind the bench with John Cooper, or even a Tyler Johnson trade.

However, if you combine a majority of the skaters mentioned above with 2018 Vezina Trophy Finalist, Andrei Vasilevskiy, then a 2021 Stanley Cup championship is around the corner.