The Tampa Bay Lightning (also 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 Lightning were founded as an expansion team on December 6, 1990, and began play in the 1992–93 NHL season. The team has won three Stanley Cup championships: in 2004, 2020, and 2021. Since 2015, the Lightning have reached the conference finals six times (in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022) and have made four appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals, winning in 2020 and 2021 and finishing as runners-up in 2015 and 2022 to the Chicago Blackhawks and Colorado Avalanche, respectively. Additionally, the Lightning won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2019 after they tied the then all-time record for regular season wins in the 2018–19 season, tying the 62 wins of the 1995–96 Detroit Red Wings (later broken by the 2022–23 Boston Bruins), and won eleven straight playoff series from 2020 to 2022. The team’s sustained success in the time period from 2015 to 2022 has led some outlets to regard the Lightning as a modern NHL dynasty within that timsepan. 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.
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Just the facts lol