Two-time Cup champion Lightning facing rare bit of adversity

Steven Stamkos notices a different feeling around the Tampa Bay Lightning.

For a team accustomed to winning — not only the Stanley Cup the past two years but in the regular season at a high level — it has been a challenging few weeks. The back-to-back defending champions have lost nine of their last 15 games, with three separate three-game skids handing them the kind of adversity they have not experienced in quite some time.

“It feels like every mistake right now is kind of ending up in the back of our net, so it’s tough not to get frustrated,” Stamkos said Wednesday night after a 4-3 loss at Washington. “We just have to continue to work our way through it. We have a lot of veteran leadership on this team that we know we can work our way out of it.”

The bigger question is whether the Lightning can harness the right lessons from the past month and apply them when the playoffs begin in early May. After coaching Tampa Bay on several long runs, missing the postseason entirely, enduring a stunning first-round sweep and then hoisting the Cup twice, Jon Cooper understands the answer won’t be clear until after the regular season.

“We can only wait and see if it’s going to help or not, but it tests you mentally and physically,” Cooper said. “The boys have played a lot of hockey over the last couple years. And especially these last two months, we’ve asked a lot of them. Sometimes it becomes a little bit more than just the physical part of it.”

There has been some roster turnover, but many core players are now 70 games into another regular season after almost 50 over the past two playoffs combined. No team has played more hockey since August 2020 than the Lightning.

With that comes fatigue but also the perspective of what the