The Lightning’s 5-Game Packs are the ultimate exercise in ticket bargain hunting 

Good news to the value-seeking Bolts fan. The Lightning have officially unveiled new 5-Game Packs for the upcoming season.

The packs are a carefully crafted exercise in ticket bargain hunting. And the concept is simple: four curated five-game plans to fit any schedule, with the flexibility to choose your seats. Each pack comes with different groupings of teams, different pricing and a variety of big matchups to feast on (similar to the Taco Bell Luxe Box). And all of them feature one of the best and most talented returning rosters in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

But which is right for you? That’s where this comes in. Here we’ll discuss the dates, the stakes and the potential highlights, including the starting price for the lowest priced ticket of each pack. Consider it a hurried person’s guide to a handful of great Bolts games this season.

The Value Pack

Starting price for lowest priced game: $36

The biggest perk of the Value Pack is that while it clocks in at the lowest starting price of the four, it still includes matchups that pack a sneaky good punch. The fact of the matter is these games are priced on demand, and while Western Conference teams don’t tout as much of a draw to certain demographics here, they should to the smart and entertainment-seeking sports fan. The Penguins’ Sidney Crosby is in here, too, who recently dipped his Holy Grail into a fresh batch of unicorn’s blood ahead of an impossible Year 21.

The Value Pack also features two games on weekends and two matchups on a Thursday night—locally known as a “Tampa Friday”—to tie together any big weekend plans.

The Weekend Pack

Starting price for lowest priced game: $38

Speaking of weekends, if your main calling is to anchor your Saturday or Sunday Funday plans to elite-level hockey, the Lightning have a pack for that, too. It includes four enticing matchups against playoff teams from last season, including a Saturday night tilt against longtime foe Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals. Also worthy of note is the perennially underrated Sunday 5 p.m. puck drop. It’s a puck drop that leaves plenty of runway for the 1 p.m. slate of NFL games while also keeping postgame options open for a late dinner or an early pack-in.

All-Star Pack

Starting price for lowest priced game: $43

The All-Star Pack is about big names, bright lights and hot, nasty speed. It’s Connor McDavid going into hyperspace before getting stoned by Andrei Vasilevskiy. It’s reigning Ted Lindsay Award winners Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon going point for point in a ’22 Stanley Cup Final rematch. It’s your eyeballs dilating to their fullest capacity to take in all of it. The stars featured in these games are probably playing in the Winter Olympics come February. And the All-Star Pack, along with the incoming Premium Pack, also dives into April, when the stakes are at their highest as the playoffs draw near.

Premium Pack

Starting price for lowest priced game: $53

Back in 2015, the Lightning became the first franchise to face only Original Six franchises throughout the span of an entire playoffs, defeating the Red Wings, Canadiens and Rangers before falling to the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final. The Premium Pack goes all in on these franchises, with exception of the currently upstart Blackhawks. It’s top-dollar among the five-packs, but the history and rivalries among the matchups are worth the price of admission for the purist of hockey fans.