NHL's Eastern Conference still runs through Tampa Bay

Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning are accustomed to short offseasons.

This one, the Lightning captain said, "wasn't as fun as the previous two."

The Stanley Cup relocated to Colorado after the Avalanche dethroned the two-time defending champion Lightning in a six-game final in July.

The Eastern Conference, however, still seems very likely to run through Tampa Bay. Despite another round of off-season, salary cap-forced departures, the Lightning believe they remain the team to beat.

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"Sure, there are a lot of factors that are going against us in terms of losing some good players, and people are going to talk about the core getting a little older," Stamkos said. "But I still think that we're a team that's going to be competing for the Stanley Cup at the end of the season."

Minus defenceman Ryan McDonagh and winger Ondrej Palat, the Lightning still feature a playoff-tested core that enabled them to become the NHL's 14th franchise to reach the final in three consecutive seasons, and first since the Edmonton Oilers did so from 1983-85.

"We've got a few new faces, fresh blood for our team," Vasilevsky said. "And we'll do or best to get back on top."

It won't be easy.

The degree of difficulty steepened following an off-season in which the shift in talent tilted heavily eastward.

A conference already featuring Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews became the landing spot for a trio of 40-goal-scorers, with Johnny Gaudreau signing with Columbus, Florida acquiring Matthew Tkachuk and Alex DeBrincat's arrival in Ottawa.

The talent splurge follows a season in which 16 points separated eighth-place Washington and the ninth-place Islanders, the largest