Raw Charge
Summary
Can the past help us predict the future or is life and hockey just an ever-moving river that you can never set the same foot into twice? Who knows? However, we live in a world where we cling to numbers and stats as ways to possibly divine what might happen tomorrow. Last season, the Tampa Bay Lightning got off to a big of a sluggish start before getting on the right track on their way to 106 points. This season, they’ve jumped out to a better start as they’ve gone 7-3-0 in their first ten, but are they a better team, or are the breaks just coming their way? In both seasons, the Bolts had played five home games and five road games. Unlike this season, Tampa Bay had played some divisional games by this point in 2025-26, so the importance of some of the wins and losses is a bit diminished. One more thing worth noting that by the time the tenth game came around last year, the Lightning were in the midst of a five-game winning streak that pulled a lot of their numbers up from where they had been after the first five or six games. Let’s take a quick look at the basic numbers. Stats 2025-26 2026-27 Record 4-4-2 7-3-0 Goals For Per Game 2.90 3.40 Goals Against Per Game 3.00 2.90 Power Play 14.3% 13.5% Penalty Kill 88.2% 77.8% Face-Off Percentage 44.8% 49.7% Stats via NHL.com All-in-all, the 2026-27 Tampa Bay Lightning seem to be a little better in most categories, with the penalty kill being the glaring exception. In case you were wondering, the power play in 2025-26 was 5-for-35 at this point while this season’s is 5-for-37. As for the penalty kill, one nice thing that they’ve done is cut down on the number of times they’ve been short-handed, from 34 in 2025 to 27 in 2026, but they’ve conceded two more goals. Oddly enough, they are allowing fewer shots on goal this season (47.68/60 vs. 54.51/60) and fewer scoring chances (46.36/60 vs. 53.47/60). The big difference has been in save percentage as this year’s duo is at .833 compared to .923 last season. The power play is the power play, and we all have our thoughts about that, but something to point out for this season is that after going 0-for-13 over the first three games, they went 5-for-24 over the next seven. A 20.8% success rate isn’t going to scare too many teams, but it is at least a functioning power play at this point. As important as special teams are, most of the game is played at 5v5. so let’s look at those numbers, courtesy of Natural Stat Trick. 5v5 Stats (all per 60 minutes) 2025-26 2026-27 Shot Attempts 58.44 65.04 Shot Attempts Against 57.01 50.56 Scoring Chances 27.40 33.62 Scoring Chances Against 22.73 23.79 High-Danger Chances 10.78 13.58 High-Danger Chances Against 9.09 10.09 Expected Goals 2.94 3.08 Expected Goals Against 2.36 2.45 Shooting Percentage 10.40% 10.82% Save Percentage .906 .896 Ten games is still a relatively small sample size for a season, so take some of these numbers with a grain of salt. However, it is interesting to note how similar a lot of them are, yet the two versions of the Lightning had such different records. This season has been a little more active in terms of shooting the puck (something more than a few of us have been calling for over the last few seasons) but not quite as locked in defensively. Judging by the eye test, a better forecheck has allowed the Lightning more offensive zone time and led to more shot attempts. Not only more attempts, but they are doing a slightly better job of getting the puck on net as 45.8% of their attempts are on target compared to 44.8% from last season. It doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but if they can keep that up throughout the season, it adds up. That’s not only a chance for more goals, but also more wear and tear on opposing goaltenders, and more rebounds causing chaos. The nice thing is that they haven’t sacrificed that much defense in order to obtain those extra chances. While they are allowing slightly more scoring and high-danger chances, they are still doing pretty well compared to the rest of the league as they are sixth in scoring chances against and tenth in high-danger chances. If they can hover around these numbers while keeping the offensive numbers rolling, it will bode well for their future. Let’s circle back to the goaltending. A big topic of discussion heading into the season was in regard to the back-up position. Out went Jonas Johansson, in came Dennis Hildeby. With a younger, and more highly regarded Hildeby on the roster, the thought was he would see a little more playing time, and give the Lightning a better chance to win when he’s on the ice. Through ten games, at least one of those things is true. Goaltender Games Record Save Percentage Goals Against Goals Saved above expected HDSV% Jonas Johansson 3 2-1-0 .913 3.04 0.79 .833 Dennis Hildeby 2 2-0-0 .920 2.01 0.60 .909 As for the games played. It is worth noting that the Lightning had three sets of back-to-backs in their first ten games last season. This year, they had zero. So, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that, with the games have been spread out this season, Johansson might have one start under his belt had he stayed with the team this season. In short, both back-ups posted excellent numbers early in the season. Both picked up wins against good opponents (Johansson had wins against Boston and Anaheim, both playoff teams while Hildeby beat Minnesota), but Hildeby gets a slight edge since he posted better overall numbers. That’s the story for the backups, how about for the Big Cat? Last year, Andrei Vasilevskiy secured his second Vezina Trophy, is he on pace to match that season? Season Record Save Percentage Goals Against GSAx HDSV% 2025-26 2-3-2 .893 2.86 -0.30 .760 2026-27 5-2-0 .884 2.78 -0.76 .768 Honestly, pretty similar, eh? Goalies, much like special teams, suffered from the shortened pre-season more so than skaters. Vasilevskiy had just 115 minutes of game time prior to the season starting, and it takes awhile to get back to game speed. Couple that with the fact that Vasilevskiy has long been a slow starter, so it’s not surprising that has save percentage and GSAx are a little underwhelming through the first ten games. Last year he finished with a .911 SV% and 14.01 GSAx. If he pulls that off again, expect a lot more Lightning victories this season. The Lightning were a very good team last season that was a little unlucky to start last season. The good news is that the early numbers indicate that the 2026-27 Lightning team is also a good team that is creating a little more luck in the offensive zone. It’s kept them among the top teams in the Eastern Conference and given them some flexibility for the days to come. Perhaps they won’t need to go 20-1-1 midway through the season in order to vault their way up the standings. Instead, they can use a long streak like that to cement their spot at the top and perhaps conserve some energy for the post-season.