Tampa Bay Lightning roster: Projecting the full roster for the 2023/24 NHL season

The Tampa Bay Lightning had a pretty busy offseason as they had yet another cap crunch after their back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021.

The NHL off-season is well underway, but with the draft and the first wave of free agency behind, most teams are set outside of minor signings or trades to clear cap space.

With the Lightning's off-season pretty much complete, here is a roster projection for the team. Of course, NHL players usually carry 23 players on an NHL roster and usually split up with 13 or 14 forwards, seven or eight defensemen, and two goalies.

Tampa Bay Lightning 2023 roster: Forwards (13)

The forward group of the Tampa Bay Lightning is practically set, but there could be one or two forward spots up for grabs.

The Lightning will be led by their core group of Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, and Brandon Hagel. Tampa Bay also changed their entire fourth line as they got younger and looked to add more speed.

However, the Lightning did trade away Ross Colton - due to cap reasons - and saw Alex Killorn sign with the Anaheim Ducks in free agency.

As of right now, if Tampa Bay does make another move in free agency, it will be adding another depth forward to play in the bottom six.

The 13 forwards that will likely make the Lightning are as follows:

1. Steven Stamkos
2. Nikita Kucherov
3. Brayden Point
4. Brandon Hagel
5. Anthony Cirelli
6. Connor Sheary
7. Nick Paul
8. Tanner Jeannot
9. Mikey Eyssimont
10. Luke Glendening
11. Josh Archibald
12. Cole Koepke
13. Logan Brown

Tampa Bay Lightning 2023 roster: Defense (8)

Victor Hemdan will lead the Lightning on defense

Most of the Lightning's moves this off-season were done with the forward groups. As such, the defensive group is mostly the same, and they will be led by Victor Hedman, Mikhail Sergachev, and Erik Cernak.

The lone move the Lightning made on defense was letting Ian Cole leave in free agency. He was replaced by Calvin De Haan who signed a one-year deal.

With that, the eight defensemen Tampa Bay will carry on the roster is not a competition, unless the Lightning decide to move one of them to make more cap space.

1. Victor Hedman
2. Mikhail Sergachev
3. Erik Cernak
4. Nick Perbix
5. Darren Raddysh
6. Calvin De Haan
7. Zach Bogosian
8. Haydn Fleury

Tampa Bay Lightning 2023 roster: Goalies (2)

The Lightning will be set at goalie as they have one of the best goalies in the league in Andrei Vasilevskiy. However, the Russian will have a new backup as the Lightning opted to not re-sign Brian Elliott and instead inked 27-year-old Jonas Johnasson to a two-year deal.

1. Andrei Vasilevskiy
2. Jonas Johansson