The Tampa Bay Lightning have overcome a slow start to the season, numerous injuries and an insanely packed top of the Eastern Conference standings to once again be one of the NHL’s best teams just past the midway point of the 2025-26 NHL calendar.
Tampa Bay surpassed that midway mark with their 42nd game on Tuesday, doing so by beating the top team in the NHL standings—the Lightning became just the fourth squad to beat the Colorado Avalanche in regulation this season with a complete 4-2 victory, one which pushed their win streak to a season-long eight straight games.
So, how have they done it? Lightning general manager and vice president of hockey operations Julien BriseBois spoke on that, contract extensions, prospect updates and plenty more during his midseason chat with the media on Thursday.
In this latest edition of the FourCheck, let’s dive into four takeaways from that conversation:
- What stands out to BriseBois?
Tampa Bay’s general manager pointed to the team’s following league-wide ranks on Thursday:
- Second for goal differential at +34.
- Third for 5-on-5 goal differential.
- Second-best offense.
- Third-best team defense.
- Fifth-best penalty kill at 83.6%.
It’s all about the defense to Brisebois this season, and the data backs him up.
He likes that the Lightning are doing a better job of limiting quality scoring chances allowed by protecting the slot, managing the puck and limiting turnovers.
The team’s power play ranks around the middle of the NHL so far this season, but BriseBois pointed to its recent run—over the last month, the Lightning are clicking at 28.3% on the man advantage, fifth-best in the league.
Even on the power play, BriseBois likes his team’s defensive effort more this year from one season ago when they were scoring more.
“When you look at all those numbers, they are the numbers of a really good hockey team, and I think that's why we've had a successful first half of the season,” BriseBois said. “And really, our success stems from our commitment to being a really good defensive team. Going back to last season, I think our group has re-established itself as one of the top defensive teams in the league, and that's why we've had success, and that's why I have reason to believe we're going to continue to have success.”
BriseBois said one area the team can improve through the second half of the season is by reducing the number of penalties they take. Tampa Bay has amassed 564 penalty minutes, second-most in the league behind only Boston.
- UFA conversations await
The Lightning have already locked up some of their players who were set to hit the open market, signing veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh to a three-year contract extension in early December before locking up defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous on a one-year pact earlier this month.
BriseBois also re-upped 25-year-old defenseman JJ Moser on an eight-year pact at a $6.75 million AAV just before 2026 began, a contract that begins next season.
Tampa Bay suddenly has only five players on today’s roster scheduled to end the year as unrestricted free agents in forwards Oliver Bjorkstrand, Curtis Douglas and Scott Sabourin as well as defensemen Darren Raddysh and Declan Carlile.
Raddysh in particular has earned himself a raise this offseason. The 29-year-old defenseman leads all Lightning blueliners in scoring with 12 goals and 36 points in 36 games, one shy of tying the career-high 37 he scored over 73 games with Tampa Bay last season.
He was tied for third in the NHL for goals by a defenseman as of Thursday morning, and his 36 points tied for fifth in the league.
“I hope his future is in Tampa,” BriseBois said of Raddysh on Thursday. “He's been with us for a long time. One thing I take particular pride in is those guys that come into our organization with no fanfare, expectations are almost nonexistent, and they end up putting in the work, taking advantage of the resources and the support that we can provide them by putting in the work, believing in themselves and finding a way to get to the NHL and establishing themselves in the NHL. Darren is a great success story, because those success stories inspire other success stories.”
Raddysh has shown strong on Tampa Bay’s top defensive pairing beside Moser while the team soldiers on during captain Victor Hedman’s time away due to an upper-body injury. His work on the power play has also been impressive, and on Tuesday he became the first defenseman in franchise history to record four consecutive multi-point games.
Contract talks with Raddysh will wait for now, but BriseBois on Thursday made clear he wants to keep the defenseman in the organization.
“I think we're going to wait, not because it's going to be a life-changing contract but because you look at his play the first year with us, his play last year, his play at the start of season, his play now, I'm going to need a bigger sample size to know exactly how to value that going forward. I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to. I don't know what that dollar sign looks like. I know I want the player to stay here. We love the guy. He bleeds blue, and he’s helping us win. He's got 33 points in the last 25 games,” BriseBois said.
Bjorkstrand has scored 20 points in 42 games so far in 2025-26. His five power-play goals are tied for second-most on the team, and he’s spent much of the season on the team’s top power-play unit.
“Right now the power play is producing, he’s been a big part of it,” BriseBois said of Bjorkstrand, who has 11 points over his last 13 games.
“It takes time sometimes to build that chemistry, to get comfortable, and he seems to be getting more and more comfortable. His 5-on-5 play has always been good. That's part of why we were attracted to him and traded for him, and that has continued to be the case. The depth being what it is right now, he's probably playing fewer minutes than what he has in the past just based on the makeup of our team and how the lines are set up, but he's been a big contributor to us, and of late, the puck's been going in for us when he's on the ice. That's good to see.”
Douglas was claimed off waivers from Utah in October and leads the team with 75 penalty minutes. He and Sabourin have formed a formidable tough duo for the Lightning this season as the team’s top enforcers, as the 33-year-old Sabourin ranks second on the team with 63 penalty minutes.
Carlile, 25, has played a career-high 21 games for Tampa Bay this season and has scored a goal and two assists while averaging 14:02 time on ice per game.
- Lightning trusting process for Bolts pipeline
Lightning fans were treated to 52 games of forward Conor Geekie in 2024-25 after the young forward was acquired in the same trade that brought Moser to town, but he has spent most of this campaign with the Syracuse Crunch in the American Hockey League.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that means he’s taken a step backwards. From what BriseBois had to say on Thursday, the organization likes everything they’ve seen from Geekie this year.
"He's doing great. I would say most nights, he really stands out. I saw him play in person a couple weeks ago in Toronto, and watched the game last night. He wants to be a difference maker. He wants the puck on his stick. He can play here right now and help us, but we have other options, and he's still such a young player. We just felt from a development standpoint, to help him realize his potential, he needed reps with the puck on his stick,” BriseBois said.
The 21-year-old forward and former 11th overall pick of the 2022 NHL Draft has scored nine goals and 29 points in 29 games for the Crunch and ranks third on the team in scoring. His 20 assists are second-most on the team, and he co-leads the team with 13 power-play points.
“Based on his play and his ability to contribute to the team's success in Syracuse—he’s on the penalty kill, he's on the first power play. The puck goes through him on the power play, he's playing 5-on-5, obviously, and getting a lot of minutes,” BriseBois said of Geekie. “He has the puck a lot, and that's the best course of action for him to realize his potential and be the best player possible for us when he comes back so he can play the biggest role possible for us when that time comes."
BriseBois said other Syracuse players have shown well, also mentioning more recent draft picks and acquisitions.
The Lightning GM named 2025 second-round pick Ethan Czata—who signed his entry-level contract this season—as well as fourth-round pick Benjamin Rautiainen and many other recent selections.
Rautiainen has scored 15 goals and leads Finland’s top professional league in scoring with 49 points in 35 games this season.
The team also traded for forward Sam O’Reilly last offseason, who was a first-round pick in 2024. O’Reilly, 19, was named one of Team Canada’s top three players at the recent 2026 IIHF World Junior Championships Tournament and helped the team win a bronze medal.
“You could see the winning habits. The good thing about his strengths—strong, defensively responsible, physical, attention to detail—is already at a high-end level, even for NHL players. He is that dialed in. And those characteristics, if you have them at the World Juniors, tend to carry forward to the next level. Not everyone that produces at the World Juniors can produce at the next level, but anyone who can be really good defensively at the World Juniors and be reliable and play a strong two-way game can carry that to the next level,” BriseBois said.
“So that bodes well for him and for us…He’s a special player.”
- A Bolt-filled Olympics and Trade Deadline preparations
There was also plenty of talk about the impending Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics in February, as 11 Lightning players will represent eight different countries.
Tampa Bay is sending more players than any other NHL team.
"It's an incredible experience for them, and I think our players are going to all come back having grown from that experience. That's usually the case. You come back a better player because iron sharpens iron, and that's what that's going to be for three weeks. You're going up against the best in the world. The very best of you is called upon every shift, and I think all our players are going to grow from that, and hopefully it serves as a launching pad for a really good spring."
BriseBois helped select Team Canada’s roster as one of its assistant general managers and will join head coach Jon Cooper, mental performance coach Ryan Hamilton as well as forwards Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel at the event for the Canadians.
He called the team selection process grueling, saying he’s nearing his 100th NHL game attended already this season. When he hasn’t been working on Tampa Bay hockey, BriseBois has been focused on Team Canada.
“It's a great responsibility, and we don't take it lightly. None of us take it lightly. It's nice to be home for a few days because we've been on the road a lot. The whole management team, we've practically lived on the road because when we weren't attending our own team’s games, either home on the road, usually I'd get in the afternoon, watch our game at night, leave the next day and go to other games. We've all been doing that because it's such a great responsibility.”
The Gold medal will be handed to the winning team on Sunday, Feb. 22, and NHL games resume on Feb. 25. A little more than a week later, the NHL trade deadline looms on March 6.
That won’t leave much time for teams to wait for planning. Tampa Bay’s midyear professional scouting meetings begin this weekend, when they will start to talk more about the deadline.
A tight Eastern Conference and injuries could make additions harder for Tampa Bay this year.
“We're right now tracking to being completely healthy only after the Olympic break, and by then, you only have two weeks before the trade deadline. So even if we're perfectly healthy, and we assign guys back down to the minors, we only have two weeks to accrue cap space. That's not enough to do anything,” BriseBois said.
“So, as is usually the case, cap space is going to be a challenge, but we’ll see. We're always on the lookout for ways to improve our team. And just as in years past, we're not only focused on this year, we're focused on future years as well. So if we can do something that increases our odds of winning the cup either this year or down the road, obviously we're going to be excited to do that if we can.”
