Better luck next year: The Tampa Bay Lightning may have finally run out of steam

They have been the best team in the NHL for nearly a decade. It is difficult to sustain that sort of success for much longer than that.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have been pretty much unmatched in terms of success over the past decade. Since the start of the 2014-15 season they have won more regular season games and more playoff games (by a wide margin) than any other team in the NHL, and have been a regular in the Eastern Conference Finals, making six appearances since the start of the 2014-15 season. That includes four trips to the Stanley Cup Finals and two Stanley Cup championships.

It has been an incredible run.

We also might be seeing the early signs of it slowing down, if not ending completely.

The Lightning were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for the second year in a row, losing a five-game series to the Florida Panthers where they just looked downright bad at times.

They controlled just 47 percent of the expected goals during 5-on-5 play.

They were outscored 11-7 at even-strength and 20-14 for the series as a whole, including an emphatic 6-1 loss in the decisive game.

It was kind of surprising, not only because it is the type of thing we do not see from the Lightning, but also because I expected them to make a bigger push. Not just in the series, but in the playoffs overall.

It is all of a sudden a team that has some big questions marks to worry about and some big decisions to make in the coming months.

Were these past two years just a temporary hiccup? Or the sign of a once great team on the inevitable decline?

Let’s talk about it.