Here we go.
We are officially less than a week away from opening night of the 2025-26 NHL season kicking off at Benchmark International Arena.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will play one final preseason game on Saturday against the Florida Panthers, capping an exhibition schedule that saw a franchise-best start and plenty of storylines along the way.
The competition was tight, the preseason games were intense (just look at Thursday’s showdown) and opportunities were available with every second of ice time.
Tampa Bay has shown strong up and down the organization this preseason—the 6-0-0 start to the 2025 preseason is the best in franchise history and has utilized a mix of 2025 draftees, NHL opening night locks, American Hockey League (AHL) prospects and those still fighting for a spot on the Lightning roster this season.
We’ve seen strong performances from many different players. Some were expected, and some have been pleasant surprises.
As training camp draws to a close, what stands out?
Let’s take a look in this edition of the FourCheck, touching on great goaltending, the emergence of newcomer forward Dominic James, power play talk and more.
1. Goalies in tip-top shape so far
Fans took a collective deep breath earlier this week after seeing goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy take the ice at Benchmark International Arena for practice on Tuesday.
Vasilevskiy spent some time away from the ice nursing a training camp injury but also skated before Monday's training camp session. He is coming off a season in which he finished second in Vezina Trophy voting as the NHL’s best goaltender and posted a 38-21-5 record with a .921 save percentage and six shutouts.
Lightning General Manager Julien BriseBois added some insurance in net via the waiver wire on Thursday also, grabbing 33-year-old goalie Pheonix Copley from the Los Angeles Kings. Copley went 24-17-1 in the AHL last season with a .904 save percentage and has a 44-16-8 career NHL record with an .898 save percentage.
While fans might wonder what that means regarding Vasilevskiy’s health, we got good news on that front this week.
Clearly the Lightning want Vasilevskiy in net whenever possible. He’s an all-time netminder and is due for another busy season in the crease—Lightning coach Jon Cooper reaffirmed on Thursday that he expects Vasilevskiy in net for the team’s preseason finale on Saturday in Sunrise, adding he should be good to go for the regular season opener.
“It's all about building depth for your organization,” Cooper said of the claim postgame Thursday. “Nothing's changed with Vas, and I would expect him to play some minutes on Saturday night. And again, everything's in preparation for us to be ready to go on Thursday. So nothing's changed in that regard. But it doesn't matter if it's a goaltender, defenseman or forward. If you find an opportunity to make yourself a little deeper, why wouldn’t you do it?”
The team has seen quality goaltending from the organization’s next men up, too—Jonas Johansson and Brandon Halverson have handled a majority of the preseason goaltending, and they’ve handled it well.
Tampa Bay’s 6-0-0 start to the 2025 preseason is the best in franchise history, and a large part of that comes down to goaltending.
“Everyone's given us a chance to win. That’s why we’re winning the games is our goaltenders have been kicking them out,” Cooper said after a Sept. 27 preseason win. “Especially in game one when JJ played against Carolina, he was exceptional. I thought all our goalies have been great…It’s another good asset too when you can sit back and look and say, ‘Hey, we've got some goaltenders here.’”
Preseason stats aren’t often tracked or shared, but they can provide some insight:
Jonas Johansson is 2-0 this preseason with a .939 save percentage in a team-high three starts. Halverson is 2-0 with a .917 save percentage and 2.15 goals against average.
The latter is fresh off a 2024-25 season in which he was an American Hockey League (AHL) All-Star, co-won the Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award for allowing the fewest goals in the AHL and made his NHL debut with Tampa Bay.
Johansson went 9-6-3 with an .895 save percentage and one shutout for Tampa Bay last season. The Swedish goalie is among the NHL preseason leaders with a 1.50 goals against average and enters season one of the two-year contract extension he signed with the team in May.
He uses the preseason to dial in on reading plays at game speed.
“There's one thing about being good in practice but another thing having that focus in a game and being really sharp for 60 minutes,” Johansson said. “So I feel like that's one thing you’ve gotta get into a little bit with these preseason games, just reading the plays.”
He said the Lightning have ramped up the energy in training camp.
“I feel like everyone in the room is ready to go, and we’ve got a great team and great personality,” Johansson said. “I think everyone is excited to get started.”
2. Dominic James being a ‘sponge’
As of Thursday, Dominic James was the only skater still at Lightning training camp without an NHL game to his name, and he earned it with a noticeable first preseason.
James, 23, signed a two-year contract with Tampa Bay on Sept. 20 after scoring 14 goals and 30 points in 45 games as an assistant captain for the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in 2024-25.
He was originally drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in the sixth round of the 2022 NHL Draft. He became a free agent this summer when a contract couldn’t be reached with Chicago before their exclusive signing rights expired this summer.
Multiple NHL teams were interested in signing James, who can play at center or on the wing. Tampa Bay ended up winning that race, and now James is being a “sponge" throughout training camp as he soaks up any knowledge he can garner from those around him.
“I think you should be yourself,” James said. “That’s what kind of got me here, and that includes being a sponge and watching what guys do. I don’t really talk too much, it’s kind of just listening and taking in a lot of stuff that these older guys do because that’s why they’re at where they’re at.”
James set up a goal for Max Groshev in a 4-1 win on Sept. 26 against Carolina, stickhandling around a Carolina defenseman at the blueline before making the pass on a 2-on-1. Another flying rush by James set up Darren Raddysh’s 1-0 goal against Nashville the following night.
He took a nasty hit in Thursday’s game but stuck with the play, making the pass to earn a primary assist on Conor Geekie’s game-sealing, highlight-reel 4-2 goal. His speed has stuck out so far.
Once it became clear James’ professional career wasn’t going to start with the Chicago organization, the team gave him permission to speak with other NHL teams about a possible contract. Some trade talks were had as well, but eventually he signed with the Lightning as a free agent after talking with team management and a former college teammate in goalie Ryan Fanti, who also plays in the organization.
“Just conversations with (BriseBois) and the opportunity at hand, I think that that was something for me that really caught my eye,” James said.
He already knows Fanti, Syracuse Crunch forward Dylan Duke and Lighting forward Mitchell Chaffee after training with him for a summer in Michigan. He has quickly become friends with another young forward aiming for an NHL job this training camp in Jack Finley.
James has enjoyed building relationships with some of the established NHL guys, too.
“It’s been fun meeting guys and building relationships with these guys,” he said. “They're Hall of Famers. It’s still really cool to me. You know, I'm an NHL hockey fan, and I hope to get my foot in the door and continue playing.”
3. Building on a strong preseason
Tampa Bay has big ambitions for 2025-26, and multiple players spoke throughout the preseason about establishing winning habits that can be built upon when the regular season opens on home ice Oct. 9 against the Ottawa Senators.
While the preseason results won’t matter in a week, it has added some confidence in the room.
“When you're winning in any sport it gives you good vibes, a good mentality, and you're just more excited when you win games than lose,” defenseman Erik Cernak said ahead of Thursday’s preseason game. “So I'm glad we’ve won all of them so far, and I think we just have to have the same mentality. It doesn't matter if it's preseason or regular season, we want to win and we want to be successful.”
Cernak has seen some of that success firsthand, too. Two 25-year-old defensemen in Max Crozier and Declan Carlile are competing to make the final NHL roster, and both played again in Thursday’s game.
Crozier skated alongside JJ Moser on Thursday, while Carlile was paired with Cernak.
“They’re amazing. You can see each year how they're progressing,” Cernak said of Crozier and Carlile. “They're becoming better players each year. This year, obviously they have a chance. So I think it's great to see them playing really good and having a good training camp.”
After Tuesday’s game in Orlando, Crozier also spoke to the competitive nature of this year’s camp, saying it has been accompanied by a team atmosphere.
Crozier registered four shots on goal in Thursday’s game, while Carlile had an assist on Anthony Cirelli’s goal and added a fight in a preseason game that finished with 186 penalty minutes between the Florida rivals.
“The organization's done a great job bringing in phenomenal guys. And yeah, it's a competitive camp and we're all fighting for spots, but we're all fighting with each other here,” Crozier said. "We want to win at the end of the day. Obviously, everyone wants to be in the lineup, but at the end of the day we want the organization to win, and that's the most important thing.”
Those organizational habits and wins started on the opening day of training camp, according to Crozier.
4. Pushing for more power play punch
Tampa Bay’s power play hasn’t needed much practice to hone in for the regular season.
The Lightning have scored eight goals on 33 power-play opportunities this preseason, good for a 24.2% rate. The Bolts have registered a power-play goal in six of their seven preseason games entering Saturday.
The lineups have changed, the power play personnel has moved around and on Thursday we got a look at the top unit without Victor Hedman. Still, Tampa Bay scored twice on the man advantage thanks to Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Raddysh.
All of this followed a season in which the Lightning finished with the NHL’s fifth-best power play at 25.9% and fifth-most power-play goals (60). Guentzel’s 17 power-play goals in 2024-25 led all players, and Kucherov’s 46 power-play points were also most in the NHL.
Kucherov acknowledged at the team’s 2025 media day that the team didn’t see the same success on the power play during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, saying that is when it matters the most—Tampa Bay went 2-for-18 on the man advantage, an 11.1% power-play percentage that ranked 15th among the 16 playoff teams.
“The power play was bad in the playoffs. So whatever happens during the season, who cares? Playoffs was bad… I really took it personal,” Kucherov said. "That’s something that you hate to see, and you're just hungry to go back on the ice and work on things and know why that didn't work. So you go out there and work on the game, and hopefully you find solutions for next year and be better…I think we need to have the right puzzles on the power play to make sure it’s working."
While postseason power-play goals count even more than during the regular season, successful special teams units can only help a team reach the playoffs. Tampa Bay should be in for another good year on the power play, and it will be interesting to see what those units look like.
Kucherov mentioned pieces of a puzzle, and a newer face could be a missing piece.
On Thursday we saw Oliver Bjorkstrand on the top man-advantage group, an area in which both BriseBois and Cooper said they were eager to see the right-shooting forward after he was acquired via trade last spring—Bjorkstrand’s 25 power-play points led the Seattle Kraken in power-play scoring in 2023-24, and his eight power-play goals ranked second.
The 30-year-old forward is entering the final season of his contract and first full campaign in Tampa Bay. He figures to play a key role with the Lightning, especially on the power play.
It looks like that unit has another weapon, meaning one of the NHL’s best power plays likely just got even more potent.
The puck drops for real next Thursday, and it’s time to find out.
