The Tampa Bay Lightning closed out the 2016-17 season with a 4-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres at AMALIE Arena.

Although the Lightning missed out on the postseason for the first time since 2013, the Bolts can take solace in the way they finished the season. On February 3, the Lightning were dead last in the Eastern Conference. They went 20-6-4 since - tied with Washington for the best record in the league over that stretch -- to jump back into the playoff conversation and push Toronto until the next-to-last day of the regular season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning live to fight another day.

The Lightning remained in the hunt for the final wild card in the Eastern Conference after defeating Montreal 4-2 on Friday at the Bell Centre.

The Tampa Bay Lightning aren't out of it just yet.

The Lightning kept alive their slim playoff hopes following a satisfying 4-1 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs in an elimination game for the Bolts.

The Tampa Bay Lightning aren't officially eliminated from the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but the Bolts chances of making the postseason have nearly vanished following a 4-0 loss to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.

The Bruins clinched a playoff spot Tuesday night after missing out the last two seasons. The Lightning can no longer catch the Bruins in the standings. The Bolts can tie Boston in points, but the Bruins will own the tiebreaker (wins in regulation and overtime) no matter what.

The Tampa Bay Lightning continued to stay alive in the chase for the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs following a 6-3 victory over the Dallas Stars Sunday night at AMALIE Arena.

The Bolts, however, aren't getting much help from teams they're trying to catch in the standings. Boston won its fifth game in a row Sunday afternoon, defeating Chicago 3-2. Currently, Tampa Bay is three points behind Toronto and Ottawa for third place in the Atlantic Division/the second wild card, but the Maple Leafs and Senators each own a game in hand on the Bolts. The Bruins are four points in front of the Bolts, but Tampa Bay owns a game in hand.

With the regular season coming to a rapid conclusion and the Tampa Bay Lightning still looking on the outside of the playoff chase, the Bolts can ill-afford to let points slip.

Saturday, the Lightning picked up a significant point after battling Montreal to a 1-1 draw through 60 minutes of regulation.

For the first time in franchise history, the Tampa Bay Lightning swept a regular season series from the Detroit Red Wings.

Even dating back to the seasons the Lightning and the Red Wings played just once or twice, the Lightning were never able to win every game in a single season. The closest they came was in 2003-04 when they tied the Red Wings in their lone meeting. In 2013-14, the Lightning won four of five. A year later, they won three of four.

If the Tampa Bay Lightning are able to squeeze into the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, they will likely point to their comeback victory Monday night against Chicago as the catalyst for getting in.

The Lightning defeated the Blackhawks 5-4 in overtime for their sixth-consecutive win at home in the regular season over the Hawks. The Bolts have earned a point from their last 11 regular season games against Chicago, going 9-0-2.

After his Tampa Bay Lightning dropped three straight games at AMALIE Arena, three games they couldn't afford to lose with a playoff chase coming down to the final days of the regular season, Victor Hedman said the Bolts wouldn't let the recent skid break them, that they needed to rebound and regroup for a critical two-game back-to-back set in a pair of cities the Lightning historically hadn't fared well in.

And rebound is exactly what the Lightning did.

The Tampa Bay Lightning were reeling, having lost their last three-consecutive games, all at AMALIE Arena.

With 10 games remaining in the regular season, however, and time quickly running out for the Lightning to make a final push for the postseason, the Bolts regained their winning touch on the road.

No way to sugar coat it, Tampa Bay's 5-3 defeat to Arizona was about as bad a loss as the Lightning have had all season.

In a game they absolutely had to win to keep pace in the race for one of the final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference, the Bolts put together an uninspiring performance.

The Tampa Bay Lightning can ill-afford a losing streak at this point of the season with a playoff spot within reach.

But playing the Washington Capitals, the Lightning just didn't have enough firepower to overcome the top team in the NHL points-wise and fell 5-3, dropping their second game in a row.

Tampa Bay rallied from a two-goal deficit in the first period but couldn't replicate the feat in the third when the Capitals again went back in front by two. The Lightning drop two points behind Toronto for the second wild card, the Maple Leafs losing in overtime to Chicago.

With Philadelphia, Florida, Ottawa and the New York Islanders all losing Thursday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning had a golden opportunity to gain even more ground in the playoff chase when they hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs at AMALIE Arena.

Instead, the Lightning fell victim to a host of issues and turned in one of their poorer performances of the season in a 5-0 shellacking at the hands of the Leafs.

Don't look now but the Tampa Bay Lightning are in a playoff spot.

Okay, so the New York Islanders technically own the tiebreaker over the Lightning currently for the second wild card in the East. Both the Bolts and the Isles are level with 77 points, but New York has 32 wins in regulation and overtime to Tampa Bay's 30.

It took three tries, but finally, the Tampa Bay Lightning have a victory over the New York Rangers this season.

The Lightning were blown out 6-1 in New York in arguably their worst game of the season on October 30. They lost a hard-fought 1-0 game in overtime a week ago at AMALIE Arena in a game that felt more like a Conference Final playoff game than an early-March regular season tilt.

Following his team's come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Atlantic Division rival Florida, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper called Ondrej Palat arguably the best player on the ice.

"He was a stud," Cooper said.

The Tampa Bay Lightning earned one of their biggest wins of the season -- and maybe their best -- after a demonstrative 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild, the top team in the Western Conference.

Unfortunately, they couldn't enjoy it because of injuries to three key players, all centers.