Because making four straight trips to the Stanley Cup final wasn’t going to be hard enough even if they returned the same line-up they had last season, the Tampa Bay Lightning went out and mixed things up on defense. They lost Jan Rutta to free agency, traded Ryan McDonagh for salary cap reasons, and Zach Bogosian is on injured reserve for at least another few weeks. That’s half of the defense out of the door before the puck was dropped on the season. Philippe Myers, Ian Cole, and Haydn Fleury were brought in and Cal Foote was expected to see an increased role as they looked to plug those holes.
An early look at the Lightning defensive pairings
