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The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. The Lightning compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play their home games at Amalie Arena in Downtown Tampa. The team has won three Stanley Cup championships: 2004, 2020, and 2021. They also reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015 and in 2022. The Lightning won 11 straight playoff series from 2020 to 2022 before eventually losing to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals, and are often referred to as a modern-day dynasty.[5][6][7] The franchise is owned by Jeffrey Vinik, and the general manager is Julien BriseBois. Jon Cooper has served as head coach since March 2013, and is the longest-tenured active head coach in the NHL.

Bringing hockey to Tampa

In the late 1980s, the NHL announced it would expand. Two rival groups from the Tampa Bay Area decided to bid for a franchise: a St. Petersburg-based group fronted by future Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes owners Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford, and a Tampa-based group fronted by Phil Esposito and his brother Tony, both members of the Hockey Hall of Fame. One of the Esposito group's key backers, the Pritzker family, backed out a few months before the bid, to be replaced by a consortium of Japanese businesses headed by Kokusai Green, a golf course and resort operator. Although it appeared on paper that the Karmanos/Rutherford group had more financial resources, it only wanted to pay $29 million of the $50 million expansion fee before starting operations. In contrast, the Esposito/Kokusai Green group was one of the few groups willing to pay the full $50 million fee up front.[8] The Esposito group would win the expansion franchise on December 6, 1990,[9] and name the team the Lightning, after Tampa Bay's status as the "Lightning Capital of North America".

On-ice and off-ice struggles

In their fourth season, 1995–96, backed by Bradley's team-leading 79 points, second-year forward Alexander Selivanov's 31 goals, and Roman Hamrlik's All-Star year on defense, the Lightning finally qualified for the playoffs, posting a 38–32–12 record for 88 points, ahead of the defending Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference by a single win. Due to his stellar play in net, Puppa was named a finalist for the Vezina Trophy (losing out to Jim Carey of the Washington Capitals). Playing the Philadelphia Flyers, a team seen as a Stanley Cup contender, in the first round, the Lightning split the opening two games in Philadelphia before taking Game 3 in overtime before a ThunderDome crowd of 28,183. This was the largest crowd for an NHL game, a record that stood until the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton; and it still stands today as the largest crowd at a Stanley Cup playoffs game. An injury to Puppa in that game, however, would see the Lightning lose the next three games and the series.

Return to respectability

By the spring of 1999, Williams had seen enough. He had not attended a game in some time because "this team broke my heart". He lost $20 million in the 1998–99 season alone, as much money in one year as he had estimated he could have reasonably lost in five years.[18] Williams sold the team for $115 million—$2 million less than he had paid for the team a year earlier—to Detroit Pistons owner William Davidson, who had almost bought the team a year earlier.[19] Along with the sale, the Lightning acquired a new top minor league affiliate; Davidson also owned the Detroit Vipers of the now-defunct International Hockey League.